Moral Certainty
by BC
Summary: Being a Princess made Toohru feel alive. As he finishes his first year at Fujimori, he feels he’s losing something priceless. Mild slash TxY.
1. A Bad Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Princess Princess and make no money of this story. Everything belongs to the awesome Tsuda Mikiyo.

Warnings: shounen ai

A/N: A new fandom for me again (mix of anime and manga canon), and a recreational, easy to write, undemanding love story that offered itself up. There was no difficulty with explaining the relationship here, and I enjoyed for once writing a fic with a single warning. As for the title, allow me to quote Wikipedia: "Moral certainty is a concept of intuitive probability. It means a very high degree of probability, sufficient for action, but short of absolute or mathematical certainty."  
The story is complete and chapters (six of them altogether) will pop up in more or less regular intervals.  
Enjoy, and do not hesitate to express your opinion in a review.

x

Part One: A Bad Day

x

Toohru had had enough of this awful day and took the first chance to escape.

With exams coming up and the Princess duties running out one by one, he had too much time to think. That wasn't a bad thing, per se, but his study-stressed mind insisted on coming up with a variety of topics that were unpleasant at best. And yesterday… that was the last drop.

The Student Council President Sakamoto Akira had given the three of them – Yuujirou, Mikoto and Toohru – the trademark shy smile of abounding aggravation and said: "The Student Council convened, and we decided that your idea of singing a few songs wouldn't work. I'm sorry, guys, but we need something more exciting: therefore we will have an End Of The Year Ball on Saturday after the exams are finished. The Princesses will, of course, be present-"

-upon which Mikoto entered into his spiel about wanting to leave as soon as possible to be with his girlfriend and _not_ wanting to dress up as a girl and, god forbid, _model for the whole school_…

It amazed Toohru that Mikoto had managed to keep up a constant level of unhappiness with his situation for the entire year, but this was fairly normal and it wouldn't have fazed him. What struck true and got him stuck in this mood – as opposed to Mikoto, who was charmed into compliance by it – were Arisada's words: "Ah, but, Yutaka-kun, this is your last performance as a Princess. You must be especially resplendent!"

And that was that.

Toohru wondered if he should have been happy. He decided that how he felt about being a Princess – and _ceasing_ being a Princess – was exclusively his personal matter and therefore there was no 'should' involved. He was melancholy and regretful and, indeed, _scared_. He had been a Princess for so long that it had become an intrinsic part of him, he felt; it had formed and affected his relationships at the school, not only but primarily with Mikoto and Yuujirou.

Not being a Princess was a huge unknown to him.

Did he even want to return for his second year?

"There you are!" Yuujirou called from the stairway and stepped out onto the roof. The day was sunny, and the boy's hair glinted enough to hurt one's eyes. "I should have checked here first, but I had entertained the hope that you were brave enough to at least go get lunch. Instead, you're being a starving coward."

Toohru rather thought that Yuujirou had the unlucky combination of a wicked sense of humour and propensity for cynicism that made his personality seem abrasive to those who didn't know him. Coupled with his – and Toohru was being objective when he reasoned this out – extraordinary beauty that made girls jealous and boys nervous in his presence, hardly anyone ever undertook the strenuous task of getting to know him.

A tiny bit ashamed, Toohru admitted to himself that had his leanness and girly face not had him nominated for a Princess, he likely wouldn't have come near Yuujirou unless absolutely necessary. Even after a year spent almost constantly in the boy's presence there were moments, special moments when the light hit him _just so_, or when he looked over his shoulder at exactly the right angle, or when he chewed on his pencil and his lower lip cushioned the wood… basically, there were moments, when even Toohru was struck by the level of beauty.

He wasn't going to fall over himself calling for his Princess and beg on his knees for a smile to brighten his day, of course, but he didn't like the fact that he, like most of the school, was susceptible to this… illusion.

"You…" Yuujirou said in the tone of a stinging accusation that would have had another person trying to recall what mortal offence they might have committed and forgotten, "…have been utterly _morose_, Toohru."

Toohru very much didn't want to talk about this during his lunch break, on the roof, where anyone was free to come and, indeed, was going to come as soon as the information that two of the three Princesses were there spread.

"You," Yuujirou continued, seemingly undeterred by the lack of response, "haven't even taken the time to appreciate the irony of Mikoto actually _looking forward_ to an event where he would be forced to dress up as a Princess-"

The door opened and a wave of hungry-eyed drooling testosterone-charged students fell through it.

"-whilst you mope around about being forced to participate. What's with the role-reversal?"

Toohru shrugged, turned around, and did his best beaming beatific Princess-smile. The crowd obediently created a cordon for him to pass through, but for once Toohru felt no sense of accomplishment, all too aware of Yuujirou's concerned scowl aimed between his shoulder-blades.

x

Yuujirou was nothing if not crafty, and Toohru really should have known better than to leave him without an answer. He would have been better off making up some excuse, or even try to placate his friend with some transparent story.

He might not have ended up in this sad position.

It was middle of the Geography class, the teacher was droning on about the exports and imports of some South American country the name of which Toohru couldn't spell (due to lack of attention rather than lack of ability), and Yuujirou was holding his pencil hostage. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been a problem, but a note on Toohru's desk was opening the extradition negotiations, and in it was stated, on no uncertain terms, that Yuujirou would keep stealing Toohru's meticulously sharpened pencils and breaking off the tips for so long as Toohru would maintain his silence.

"Stop being a pain and give it back to me," Toohru hissed, keeping one eye on the hostage pencil, the other on the teacher. "_Yuujirou_!"

The boy lifted a blonde eyebrow and meaningfully looked at his note.

Toohru stubbornly shook his head.

Yuujirou shrugged and, with a crack that went unnoticed by most of the class but ripped through Toohru's ears, broke off the lead.

Toohru hissed in irritation, but resolved to continue ignoring the pest. He pulled out his second pencil and went back to his picture. That was another tactical mistake, because Yuujirou was not used to being dismissed, and therefore was far from accepting of it.

Expertly, lightning fast and without marring Toohru's doodle, Yuujirou leaned over, extracted the pencil from Toohru's hand and straightened. With a challenging expression, he stood the poor writing implement on its tip and looked over.

Toohru gritted his teeth and turned away. Since he only had a mechanical pencil left (those were great for precise drawing, but awful for anything resembling art) he angrily shoved his doodling paper into the back of his notebook and forced himself to pay attention to the lecture and actually write notes.

"…nineteen departments; the one with the greatest population is Montevideo…"

Damn, but it was dry! What would he ever need this information for? They should be reviewing this close to exams, not trying to cram more useless facts into their heads! And Toohru couldn't even doodle the lesson away, because Yuujirou had stolen his pencils and mutilated one of them-

Come to think of it, he had obviously not harmed the second one.

Toohru risked a peek to the side. Yuujirou was staring blankly forwards, roughly in the direction of the teacher, deep in thought. He was chewing the end of Toohru's un-maimed pencil and, judging by the lines marring his forehead, he was worried.

He didn't ask Toohru again, though, and he didn't say anything when, during the next break, Toohru crumpled the note and threw it into the rubbish bin.

x

Toohru's ears were ringing after the last lesson of the day had ended and he stood up to pack his notebook. He mourned the loss of his pencils and hoped that Yuujirou would, inconspicuously, return them later in the evening, perhaps after lights-out so he couldn't be accused of having gone soft.

"Are you feeling well, Toohru?" Akira asked, putting a warm palm to Toohru's forehead.

Toohru jumped; he hadn't noticed the Student Council President approaching. He should have expected it, though: Akira had become a permanent fixture in his life. He was kind of like a puppy: bright-eyed and ridiculously cute, and he adored Toohru and Yuujirou, just a little, because they treated him like their pet. Well, he probably thought they treated him like a friend, and they both would claim so if asked, but Toohru just couldn't bring himself to spare affection on someone so adorable and innocently well-intentioned, and he knew Yuujirou felt the same way.

"I don't think you're ill," Akira said, frowning a little. Toohru wanted to pat his head.

"I'm fine, Akira," Toohru told him, and patted his shoulder instead.

Akira beamed at him. Toohru regretted he didn't have a sugar-cube or something to give to him.

"Princess!" a desperate voice cut the post-tuition rustle, and a burly form of a third-year baseball player skidded on its knees practically in front of Toohru, who took a careful step backwards and out of reach. "O, Princess! Give us the blessing of your smile to carry us through the rest of this day-"

More of the young hormone-driven men were converging, and Toohru had to exert a great effort to force a smile onto his face and hold himself with the self-confidence that kept him from getting assaulted.

There were the obligatory tears and cries and promises to bring Heaven down to his feet, and Toohru kept his mask intact for as long as it took Akira to shuffle them all out and close the door.

There really was no appreciating the boy enough.

Akira turned around, concerned, and rubbed the back of his neck. "We have no way of getting out of here before they disperse, I'm afraid," he said with undue embarrassment. It was hardly his fault that most of the students were unable to score a girlfriend and had to get their fix harassing the Princesses.

Then, by a coincidence, Toohru met Yuujirou's eyes. He couldn't read in his friend's face – he had long since given that up as impossible – but he mostly could estimate his thought-process. Right now, Yuujirou was evaluating this opportunity. Should he try to wheedle the reasons for Toohru's 'moroseness' out of him, or should he let Akira do it for him? Akira did have a way of getting people to do things he wanted them to do, often without them even realising they were doing it until afterwards…

Yuujirou did the one thing Toohru didn't expect: he turned away. His eyes slid over the window frame and he went a little closer, evaluating the distance from the ledge to the ground.

Without a word, he slung his bag over his shoulder, pushed the window open and jumped.

Akira opened his mouth to yell something and closed it again before a sound escaped. Toohru, in the first instance, remained frozen on the spot. Then his brain interpreted what he had just seen, and he ran over to the window and looked down, reciting the procedure of calling an ambulance in his head.

Yuujirou was standing on the side of the curb below and looking up, squinting into the sun. "Come on, Toohruko-chan!" he yelled.

With just a split-second of hesitation, Toohru leapt over-

-and landed in a crouch, pausing for a while to let the stabbing pain in his soles abate.

Yuujirou waited for him to stand up straight, then grabbed his elbow and dragged him off, in a direction that was completely opposite to the way Toohru wanted to go. He tried to protest, but Yuujirou was having nothing of it.

He looked at Toohru, serious – and Toohru could tell it was for real – with just a hint of irritation, and said: "Akira will buy us both ice-cream, and we can talk on the way back."

x

"Hmm… what flavour…?" Yuujirou was muttering, with Toohru's elbow safely in a death-grip after Toohru had attempted to escape for the second time. He appeared to be having great fun, too, gathering smiles from all sides, not only from older students that knew them as the Princesses, but also from complete strangers. Yuujirou just had that kind of personality that influenced everybody around him.

"I will have coconut and chocolate, I think," Akira replied, giving them the patent shy smile, and stepped forwards when the entire line moved. He had finally figured out roughly what the problem was and with the knowledge that he was neither the cause nor a possible solution, he regained his confidence.

"Yuujirou will have double strawberry," Toohru said authoritatively.

Yuujirou scowled. He didn't argue, but far be it from him to leave such a passive-aggressive attack unanswered. "Toohru wants mango and-"

"Stracciatella," Toohru cut in, to ensure that he liked at least one of the flavours.

Akira nodded, easily accepting their quirky interaction, and maintained his Switzerland-like neutrality. While Yuujirou gripped Toohru's elbow and plotted how to get into his brain, Toohru lamented his future bruises and the sad state of his finances that drove him to accepting the daily invitation for ice cream, and dreaded the moment when the door of the P-room would shut behind Yuujirou and himself.

"Any last-minute changes?" Akira asked nonchalantly.

Yuujirou said nothing, and Toohru shifted from foot to foot a few times and finally scoffed at himself for being a bloody softie. "Yuujirou would prefer banana and chocolate, I believe," he said glumly.

He half-expected his friend to amend his 'choice' as well, because they both knew that Toohru despised mango as much as Yuujirou loathed the artificial strawberry imitation, but no such luck. Once Yuujirou decided, he could be more stubborn than a donkey. It was another of their typical fights: they both got angry at each other, then something happened and they both stopped being angry and just shut up, without resolving the issue that had made them angry in the first place.

Akira stepped up to the counter and requested three double chocolate ice-creams. Sometimes Toohru got the feeling the boy was _more_ neutral than Switzerland.

"It's scientifically proven that chocolate lifts your mood," Akira explained, distributing the scones. "Will you walk with me, or are you in a hurry to get back and study?"

Toohru opened his mouth to say that they would take Akira down to his house, but Yuujirou gave his Princess smile over Toohru's elbow and said: "We'll need all the time to study we can get; the Princess duties are keeping us busy."

It was a blatant lie and Akira knew it – he knew perfectly well what the Princess duties consisted of, since he had been helping Arisada with overseeing them all year – but he accepted it as easily as anything Yuujirou and Toohru ever threw his way, and parted from them with a content expression and a light step.

Toohru envied him.

Then they were on their own, but not really, because the park was full of Fujimori students. Lots of them were yelling and cheering them on, as though there weren't real girls walking among them. Although, Toohru supposed that Yuujirou was more attractive in a dress than any girl any day, so it might have been the fault of the company he was keeping-

"You know you're going to tell me anyway," Yuujirou muttered, and a moment later he was blithely beaming at a group of third-years sprawled on the grass around a textbook, in between attention-arresting licks of his ice cream.

Toohru's mouth was cold from the treat. Despite the alleged mood-lifting effects of chocolate, he decided that he wasn't going to admit to himself that his friend had him figured out for as long as he could put it off. He took advantage of Yuujirou's unyielding grip on his arm and let the boy carry him, if he wanted to be so close. Yuujirou took it all in stride, to Toohru's mild aggravation, but it wasn't at all unexpected.

"You like being the centre of attention, don't you?" Toohru grumbled when another pair of unfamiliar people gave them shifty looks. After all, they were a couple of boys walking in the park, hanging onto each other, smiling the professional smiles of angels and waving at seemingly random young people.

Yuujirou lifted his eyebrows. "I do well in the centre of attention. Whether I like it is entirely inconsequential-"

"You _do_ like it," Toohru said with grim certainty. He fancied the idea that perhaps it depended on what kind of attention Yuujirou was receiving, and _whose_ attention it was, but the fact remained. "What will you do next year, when you're not the Princess anymore and your fanclub will go on worshipping another cross-dresser?"

Yuujirou tugged him across the lawn, taking a shortcut out of the student-infested space to the curb along the main road. He didn't reply, but Toohru could tell that he was thinking, as if something Toohru had told him inspired a whole new train of contemplation.

Toohru himself got stuck musing about how much he liked being a Princess. It was a pain, sure, and the fawning crowds of teenage males got on his nerves at times, but he was _popular_, and they _liked_ him, and, damn it, he _enjoyed_ being a Princess. He had not expected he would (and had he had different colleagues, his feelings might have been very different) when he had started. Come to think of it, he had accepted the position because of the money involved-

Damn! The money!

Toohru somehow tuned out not only Yuujirou, who effortlessly dragged him towards the dormitory, but also the rest of the world. Thirty lunches' worth a month plus the accommodations plus the uniform plus the textbooks and other supplies plus pocket-money… it added up to quite a hefty sum. He had not wasted what meagre finances he had managed to accumulate this year, but it was still pitifully little. He would have to work all through the spring break and, after the next school-year started, get a part time job…

"You're alright?" Yuujirou asked softly.

Toohru blinked and looked around himself. He had missed when they had entered the dorm building. They had come to a halt in front of the P-room, and Yuujirou had finally let go of him to rummage in his bag for a key. It was an act – at least Toohru thought it was an act, because Yuujirou was the type that had his key always handy – but Toohru couldn't for the life of him figure out the _why_.

"Mhmm…" he mumbled absently.

Yuujirou pushed his hair out of his face and stepped aside, allowing Toohru unlock the door for them (Toohru also kept his key always in the same place and easily accessible) and precede him inside. The door slid shut, the lock _snicked_ into place and Toohru sat down on his bed, staring at his hand. He had forgotten about the ice cream; it had melted and run down over his fingers, sticky and undoubtedly sweet.

"Toohru," Yuujirou said for the umpteenth time, exasperated. A moment later he sat down next to Toohru and wiped the substance from his hand with a napkin.

"It's ending," Toohru said.

They both knew he was going to tell everything, and there was no point in procrastinating. He scrambled to his feet and climbed up to Yuujirou's bed where he laid back and decided to stay for the evening. Yuujirou relocated to the swivel-chair, as he usually did when he wanted to recreate a distance between them.

"After the next Friday, we won't be Princesses anymore," Toohru said, doing his best to not sound plaintive. "No dresses, no make-up, no maniacal worshippers after us… Did it occur to you that we're free to do things that are not normally socially acceptable? When we come back in April, we won't be."

"Are you going to miss painting each other's nails, Toohruko-chan?" Yuujirou drawled in his cutesy Princess voice. Toohru didn't have to look to know the boy was fluttering his lashes, too – that was something that had evolved by itself, and Yuujirou mostly wasn't aware he was doing it. It was the one thing Toohru tended to point out to Mikoto when Yuujirou's teasing got him down.

"I'm going to miss being except from social norms," Toohru said serenely, to fog his real feelings. Yuujirou was a better friend than anybody could have asked for, but Toohru still didn't think it was a good idea to tell him that yes, he _was_ going to miss Yuujirou painting his nails, and them joking while they fixed their make-up and Mikoto's rages and – Mikoto! Did they have anything in common with Mikoto at all? Would they just stop being friends, or would Mikoto outright avoid Toohru for fear of being reminded of his stint as a Princess?

"You need to get up earlier in the morning to be able to lie to me," Yuujirou said.

Toohru, with his eyes closed and a wall of self-imposed imperception built like a fortress around him, managed to ignore that he was currently in his one safe haven, in the place where he was accepted for who he was and didn't have to put on a mask. Conversely, he also managed to rekindle his anger.

"You'll have come to terms with not knowing _everything_ about me," he snapped.

He didn't usually resort to curtness, not even when he was aggravated, and he had never truly given Yuujirou the cold shoulder so far, so it stood to reason that Yuujirou was surprised, even disconcerted by that response. There was a while of silence which Toohru used to fortify his resolve to not give in to Yuujirou's well-meaning prying and evil charming techniques, while Yuujirou undoubtedly contemplated a list of debilitating diseases Toohru might have contracted…

There was a hand on his shoulder, and Toohru tensed up. It might not have seemed so, but physical contact between the Princesses was scarce… generally, physical contact was a scarcity in Toohru's life, and while he liked being touched (though he would never _ever_ tell _anyone_), this situation made him curl up like a baby and grit his teeth to keep himself from spilling all his dark secrets (of which there were pitifully few as it was).

It wasn't as much the fact that he was being touched (normally, he guessed, but the pink-spectacled part of himself interpreted the tentativeness as gentleness) which made him uncomfortable, as the fact that he was being touched by Yuujirou, whom he had come to perceive as the single most important person in his life. He was ashamed of himself, because it was supposed to be his family: the kind aunt and uncle who took him in after his parents had died and poor misguided Sayaka, who loved him past the point of obsession.

"You're darkening my day, stupid…" Yuujirou complained.

Toohru was on the brink of telling him – anything he asked about-

But he didn't. He bit his tongue and rolled onto his side and stared unseeingly at the wall until Yuujirou sighed and postponed the interrogation in favour of the psych textbook waiting for him.

x

Toohru woke just past midnight, when his oblivious dreamland was invaded by the alien sound of low cussing. He rolled over onto his other side and squinted into the dim light of the desk-lamp.

Yuujirou was sitting in his swivel-chair, leaning over a book or a note and cursing to high heaven about something or other. There was a veritable pond of crisp-crumbs underneath him, and Toohru knew from experience that by mid-morning the two of them would have unintentionally trailed them all over the room.

"What are you doing?" he grumbled, nuzzling his pillow. It took him a while to realise why he was still dressed in his uniform pants and shirt, but that was okay, because Yuujirou took a while to stop the torrent of vulgarity and notice he was being asked something.

Toohru pulled the covers closer around himself and scrunched up his nose when he took a breath and found out he _stank_. It was the single most important information his senses supplied him with, and was instantly eclipsed by his mind's assertion that he was free to go back to sleep.

"Cramming," Yuujirou replied perhaps a second before Toohru would have fallen asleep again.

"Shouldn't have spent half your life conditioning your hair, Western Princess, and you might have spared a moment for study here and there…" Toohru slurred. It was a complete fabrication, of course, because although Yuujirou didn't have Akira's perfect marks, he was so smart that he hardly needed to study at all to keep his grades up. He just tried to make his adopted father – a teacher – proud of him, which made him more concerned about his final percentages, hence this late-night cram-session… probably, because Toohru was far too sleepy to be considered mentally competent.

What it came down to was that Toohru usually studied more, and his grades lagged behind Yuujirou's anyway.

"You're cranky when you wake up in the middle of the night, have I ever told you?" Yuujirou quipped.

"Often enough," Toohru replied, easily falling into their usual manner of interaction. "And you're touchy and whiny when you're stressed, beyond even Mikoto's level. Have _I_ ever told _you_ that?"

"You're being a pain, Toohru…" Yuujirou told his friend, who was hugging his pillow close to his body and thinking about tomorrow's ice cream and a way to pay Akira back for all the naïve _goodness_ he had brought into their lives. "By the way, why don't you tell me why you're _constantly_ being a pain these past few days?"

That effectively reminded Toohru that he and Yuujirou were on bad terms right now, though the reasoning seemed somehow skewed to his sleep-induced mind. Nevertheless, he remembered that in a more rational moment he had decided quite firmly that he was _not_ going to talk.

"Yuu…" he muttered with his mouth pressed into the bedding. "This is immensely taxing on me. I already feel like I'm losing something precious, like these are my last happy days, and I would very much appreciate it if I could be spending them with my best friend: a best friend who won't be trying to force me to tell him something I do not wish to tell him, and who'd respect my privacy."

Yuujirou swiveled around in the swivel-chair. He was scowling – worried, Toohru admitted to himself guiltily – and his hair was tied up in a ridiculous topknot. He was entirely too huggable, and it was lucky that Toohru was too tired and comfortable to crawl out of the bed (and likely to fall five feet down and onto his face), because otherwise they might have ended up in awkward positions.

"Promise you'll tell me before you leave for the vacation, and I'll leave you be in the meantime," Yuujirou suggested.

Toohru yawned. "Alright. Fine. I promise." He wasn't entirely sure what he was promising, but he trusted Yuujirou. He knew it was idiotic of him but, damn, whenever Yuujirou had let him down it was to help him in a totally backwards and totally _effective_ way.

And Toohru really, really appreciated that.

"Very well, then, Toohru," the blond said, smirking widely. "But, you know that was something you would normally tell a lover, don't you?"

That was a several-times-revisited argument, and Toohru knew where he stood in it, so he just shrugged and snuggled closer to his pillow. "Don't worry, Yuujirou," he reassured his friend. "I suffer no delusion about our relationship. You've told me, loud and clear and repeatedly: we're _platonic_."

Yuujirou laughed as he turned back to his desk, and proclaimed: "And don't you forget it!"


	2. The Derniere

Part Two: The Dernière

x

There were days when Toohru didn't like Yuujirou at all, like when he had scattered onion-flavoured crisp-crumbs all over the floor, or when he had 'borrowed' Toohru's highlighters and used-up all of them except the pink one… or when he wouldn't shut up about the latest girl he met that couldn't see her own shoes.

Then there were days like today, when Toohru liked Yuujirou more than he usually did… in fact, liked him more than he could express in words and that was a source of great disconcertment, because he wasn't _supposed to_.

Of course, he knew that the 'supposed to' was basically somebody's opinion that caught on and the people mindlessly parroted it until they didn't remember where it originated anymore, and didn't care. Toohru knew about this and was not as simple-minded as to subscribe to it. In the end it came down to the fact that he didn't want to feel like that… and couldn't stop.

"Why do we have to do this again…?" Toohru muttered to himself, staring into the mirror. The wig was falling into his face but, apart from it being troublesome, it gave him – or would have given him, had he been a girl – a hint of mystery. It was a good look on him, and he contemplated growing his hair for real in the future: he was getting hit on by guys anyway, so he might as well…

"If I recall it clearly," Yuujirou replied with no small amount of sarcasm, "you were the one who fell over himself to accept this job. It was all '_Shihoudani, why didn't you tell me how awesome being a cross-dresser was'_, and '_President Arisada, of course I'll dress up as a girl every day when you're paying so nicely_'-"

"What can I say?" Toohru sniped back. "Madonna was right. We're living in a material world."

"Are you ready, Princesses?" one of the boys from the handiworks club – Toohru still, after almost a year, couldn't really tell them apart – asked through the door.

"Just a second!" Yuujirou called back, but the door was thrown open anyway.

Mikoto strode- no, Mikoto actually _swam_ through it, giving a smile and a flirty wink to the handicrafts club outside. "What's taking you so long, _girls_?"

Yuujirou and Toohru stared at him for a moment, and then met each other's eyes.

"This is creepy," Toohru said.

"Uhuh," Yuujirou agreed. "Mikoto's finally discovered his inner female. Pity it's his last jig as a Princess…"

That reminder was all it took to crash Toohru's slowly lifting mood nose-first into the ground.

"I think that's exactly the reason why," Toohru concluded and turned back to the mirror, gave his lashes one last swipe with the mascara and threw the make-up proprieties onto the counter. He wasn't going to have a use for them ever again, and some of Natashou-sempai's underlings would gather it up and store for the next-year Princesses.

Toohru wondered if he would hate the boys. He was sure he would be jealous of them, that he would scoff at their effort and think that 'we could have done so much better'… Maybe it would be better if he took the coward's way and opted out. There were other schools, and his uncle and aunt would be glad to have him back home. Therapy was allegedly helping Sayaka, so he might not hate being there…

He looked at his reflection: there was an attractive young androgynous person looking at him, eyes shuttered and, he knew, not so well hiding his melancholy. The glittery tiara looked great on him, the black and dark-blue velvet dress looked great on him, sadness looked great on him, and he felt like a movie-star. His audience loved him and for this one night he would feel like a real Princess.

Yes, he decided. If Mikoto could do it… Toohru would have to.

"Let's go," he said confidently and preceded his two 'colleagues' out of the room.

Yuujirou stepped up behind him; Mikoto followed, much more interested in himself and ranting on about how awesome the world was than in what was actually going on. Yuujirou peeked sideways at Toohru, who was studiously staring ahead…

…a gloved hand briefly clasped his. When Toohru, stunned, looked to the side, Yuujirou was occupied with dazzling one of the boys that had volunteered as the Princesses' bodyguards. Under the foundation it was impossible to tell, but Toohru was almost certain that…

There was an untapped tiny bit of naivety in Yuujirou, and it came out at the most inopportune times. What the heck had he been blushing for? How could he mercilessly tease Toohru one moment, assault his pencils the next, and in the blink of an eye get all demure and pink-cheeked?

Talk about mixed signals.

x

Toohru had completely forgotten that it was not only the Princesses' last performance but also, in a way, Arisada's farewell party, so he wasn't quite prepared for what happened next.

Akira, though he was the de facto leader of the Student Council, didn't enjoy the scene quite so much, so he let Arisada do his thing and electrify the crowd with the not at all disguised intention of taking away their last money.

"…all three Princesses – tonight especially beautiful! – will dance with you! Everyone, please buy your ticket that allows you an undisturbed minute of your Princess' time-"

Mikoto's elation abated all of sudden.

"N-no…"he stammered, and then started yelling as if he didn't realise that the only ones who heard him over Arisada's monologue hammering on their ears from the speakers were Yuujirou, Toohru, and their 'bodyguards', and he wasn't accomplishing anything but making himself look stupid. "I'm a man! A man! I can't dance with another man! I-"

"_Mikoto_," Yuujirou said.

Toohru lifted his eyes to the ceiling – and by proxy to heaven – mentally asking his long-dead parents to grant him their protection for tonight, because he was going to need it.

Mikoto's voice, predictably, rose to a higher pitch and newer depths of desperation. He was becoming loud enough to actually drown out the ex-President of the Student Council, and Toohru's bland smiling and waving (he was physically incapable of making himself look more enthusiastic about this messed-up activity) couldn't make up for it. They were becoming a spectacle (which, granted, they were supposed to be, but not quite _this_ way), and the crowd's attention was gradually shifting to them.

Toohru was ready to very un-lady-likely punch Mikoto out, when Yuujirou moved.

He stepped behind Mikoto, untied the neat ribbon on the lacing of Mikoto's poisonously violet corset, and pulled.

Then there was silence… at least so it seemed to Toohru, in the sudden absence of Mikoto's yelling. Arisada went on speaking, but the source of the greatest noise stood leaning slightly backwards, grappling at his own chest and gasping for air.

"There," Yuujirou said with icy calm and let go of the ribbons, allowing the little drama-queen to take a much needed lungful of air.

"B-but…" Mikoto tried to protest; however Yuujirou's warning tug on the laces convinced him not to finish the statement.

"This is really happening, isn't it?" Toohru said, awed.

"Yeah," Yuujirou replied, and slid back into his flashlit spot in between Toohru and Mikoto. A quick check ascertained that Mikoto's corset had been retied.

"It's going to be Waltz, right?" Toohru queried, hoping against hope, because he was the first to admit that he had no dancing skills to speak of, and Waltz was the height of his ability. "The steps are the same for the woman, just in reverse, _right_?"

Yuujirou, a little wide-eyed and obviously recounting what he knew about ballroom dancing, nodded. Mikoto stared forwards, frozen.

"Don't worry, guys," a new voice said, and Akira joined them on the stage, followed by Mitaka, both in tuxedos. Akira smiled, but this time even the so-dubbed 'Buddha's smile' failed to induce some tranquility into Toohru's rollercoaster life. "You're going to dance with members of the Student Council first, so you've got time to get the hang of it."

Toohru reflexively checked on Arisada, just to be sure that the ex-President hadn't died in the past few seconds and possessed poor Akira. It didn't seem to be so, which robbed Toohru of the only plausible explanation he could find for the statement his (supposed) friend had just delivered.

"You mean we've got _a whole song_ to learn the steps?" Yuujirou asked in a tone that unthawed Mikoto and made him cringe away.

Akira smiled on, as if he had not noticed the hounds of hell were being given his scent.

"I will find a way to make you regret this, Aki-"

The rest of Yuujirou's threat was made unintelligible when the first tones of the music roared from the speakers, and Akira bowed to Toohru, asking him to dance with an extended hand.

Toohru took the hand, and for the time being suspended thoughts of revenge, because he had to focus entirely on learning to dance like a bloody _Princess_ within the next three minutes. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Yuujirou being swept up by Arisada, and Mikoto undoubtedly shared the same fate.

The floor spun and Toohru felt dizzy for a moment, before his brain mapped the locations of his extremities and he found he could move on his own will. It helped that Akira was an amazing dancer.

"I can try to make him jealous, if you want," Akira whispered, leaning close to Toohru's ear.

"Him and everyone else in the room," Toohru muttered under his breath, while his eyes disobediently strayed to the back of Yuujirou's head. He quickly turned away, met Akira's eyes and replied in his best aloof voice: "I have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about, but it sounds like a risk to your health, so I don't recommend it."

"As you wish," Akira replied with a slight shrug. He continued whirling with Toohru across the dance-floor and smiling, though this time there was a hint of disappointment and, perhaps, sadness in his expression.

x

"I think I'm going to murder someone… I'd appreciate it if you stopped me," Yuujirou said when there was finally silence and they could understand each other's words. Mikoto was lying on his back in the centre of the floor, surrounded by trampled confetti, his wig and the skirts of his dress, trying to catch his breath.

Toohru was sitting on the edge of the stage; sweat was dripping from his bangs into his eyes and he used a stolen tablecloth to wipe his face off the smeared make-up. He wasn't certain if he could feel his legs, much less be able stop Yuujirou from going homicidal on someone.

"Water…" he wheezed.

Akira materialised next to him, carrying two glasses of juice; he gave one to Toohru, the other to Yuujirou, who took it, considered it, and poured it over Akira's head.

Toohru almost choked in the middle of a swallow at the wounded expression Akira gave his friend.

"Are we done here?" Yuujirou asked glacially.

Akira exhibited trace amounts of self-preservation: he nodded and made himself scarce.

Yuujirou started coughing, and Toohru regretfully passed him the last third of his juice. He was doubly glad not to have it poured over his head, and didn't care in the least when, upon emptying it, Yuujirou simply threw the glass away, where it shattered and added to the mess.

"Let's go…" Yuujirou said, and helped Toohru down from the stage.

Toohru swayed once he was standing on his feet, but somehow, hanging onto each other, the two of them managed to move toward the exit.

"Mikoto?" Toohru asked.

Yuujirou shrugged. They were close enough to each other to feel the wave of swelter coming from underneath one another's skin, as if they both had high fever; their dresses were soaked through with perspiration, and both of them carried their shoes in their free hands. The hoped they wouldn't cut their soles open on the debris, but were willing to take the risk rather than put the heels back on. Toohru figured that if a prince appeared then, or a knight… or even a random peasant that would offer to carry him back to the dorm, he might just do the fairy-tale thing and offer his hand in marriage.

Arisada, Akira and Mitaka together were worse than any warlock, any evil queen and any dragon ever described in any story.

"I'll sleep here," Mikoto informed them on no uncertain terms, not even bothering to lift his head from the floor or look over to them.

Toohru sympathised. Just as Mikoto got teased more, he also got requested more often.

"Night, then," Toohru and Yuujirou replied in their thought-reading unison – which apparently didn't disappear even when they were dead tired – and trudged on.

The cool night air hit them like a hammer to the head.

"It's too damn far…" Yuujirou mused, steadfastly putting one foot in front of the other.

"We could have had Akira help us," Toohru replied, without the slightest hint of accusation which, under the circumstances, was a surefire way of measuring the extent of his affection for his friend.

"We'll make it," Yuujirou said, and then it was settled.

It took them ten times as long as usually, and they slipped often and possibly saved each other's life when they had almost taken a tumble down the stairs and broken their necks. In the end, they did – just like Yuujirou had said – make it.

They didn't bother with the formalities and simply fell through the door of the P-room, leaving the shoes where they landed and crashing onto Toohru's bed. Toohru got carried away contemplating that Yuujirou, in fact, was the saviour who in the end took him to the dorm, and whether that counted… because right then he was willing to sign his soul away to his friend-

Yuujirou untied Toohru's corset and, released from the torture, his ribs ached something awful. Toohru let out a pained gasp and stared forwards into the darkness – lights-out had been weaved for the night, but neither of them had bothered switching on the light, because then they would have to get up and switch it off again – waiting for his body to get used to the freedom.

"You're okay?" Yuujirou asked, worried. His voice was hoarse and Toohru passed him his emergency bottle of mineral water once he felt he could move without risking his skeleton falling apart.

"If you still want to kill someone, I'm volunteering as the victim," Toohru muttered.

Yuujirou glared at him; granted, it wasn't funny even – or _especially_ – in their present situation. Toohru was in pain, though, and he didn't have the energy necessary to censor himself. Roughly, he grabbed Yuujirou's shoulder, turned him away from himself and untied Yuujirou's corset, gritting his teeth when Yuujirou couldn't bite his moan back either.

"Mikoto's going to _suffer_," Toohru whispered. He sincerely wished he had the strength to go back to the gym and at least loosen Mikoto's lacing, but it was simply impossible. Perhaps Akira would think of it – maybe, hopefully…

"We have to get up," Yuujirou said.

Toohru stared at him, incomprehensive, and then decided to ignore the statement and pull off his dress, ideally without tearing it apart. He mostly managed, too.

"We have to wash this crap off…" Yuujirou attempted to clarify, though the coarseness of the language gave away how out of it he was.

Toohru checked the clock: it was almost three a.m. "Who cares, Yuu…?" he mumbled, lying down onto one side of his bed, purposefully leaving as much free space as possible, because he couldn't imagine forcing Yuujirou to climb up the ladder. "'s the last night 'nyway. Just sleep."

More exhausted than he had ever been in his life, in pain and ready to drop off, Toohru saw an angel in his room. The apparition was blonde and gold-eyed, and it glittered where starlight hit the droplets of perspiration on its skin… Once he, half-dreaming, realised what he was seeing, Toohru was quite sure that a sweaty Shihoudani Yuujirou in black lace was the single sexiest thing he would encounter in his life.

Unfortunately, two seconds later he was asleep.

x

There was sunlight.

Apart from sunlight, which Toohru identified easily without opening his eyes, he also became aware of the smell of unwashed bodies and the general stickiness of himself.

He tried to move and found it to be a mistake, whereupon he felt the need to inquire, just in case: "Am I dead?"

"No," Yuujirou replied, scant couple of inches from his ear, "but if you're feeling like I'm feeling, then you wish you were."

"If I ever wear a corset again, someone will have to pay me with my weight in gold," Toohru said bitterly, trying to reach his bottle of water. It wasn't where he usually left it, but a moment later Yuujirou put it straight into his hand.

Perhaps fifteen minutes of intermittent sniping and funereal humour later, they sat up and inched away from each other to what they deemed a relatively safe distance.

"Shower?" Toohru asked.

"Yeah."

Dressed in lacy black lingerie and mercifully all-covering bathrobes, they braved the hallways. There was the odd student here and there, but it seemed to be still early enough that they didn't have to deal with the obligatory lines of devotees begging for their blessing.

"You think Mikoto's survived un-crippled?" Toohru asked, locking the bathroom door.

"The Student Council would have taken care of him," Yuujirou said, stoically unfastening the suspender belt.

Toohru figured that the physical hurt took out all the melancholia of their last cross-dressing occasion. Free of all the frivolous undergarments, he stepped under the showerhead and let the stream of water rejuvenate him.

"Hey, Toohru," Yuujirou spoke up after a while of undisturbed hiss of the showers, "we're leaving in a few hours and you still haven't told me what's the cause of the permanent raincloud over your head."

Toohru sighed. He had, in the wake of last night's torment, entirely forgotten that he had not yet dealt with this matter. Why couldn't Yuujirou have forgotten too?

"You promised," Yuujirou reminded him unnecessarily.

Toohru was perfectly aware of that, and he didn't even regret it very much, because he couldn't imagine having endured yesterday _plus_ his best friend's constant pestering. On the other hand, he had not expected to have this conversation in the buff and it made him more than a little uncomfortable.

Damn Yuujirou for being a live lie-detector!

"It's stupid," Toohru said.

"Alright," Yuujirou replied.

"What?"

Toohru threw a look over his shoulder; Yuujirou met his incredulity with unshakable equanimity: "We've established it's stupid. You still haven't told me what the problem was."

Well, technically that was true, but there was the little matter of Toohru being _naked_ at the moment and he felt especially vulnerable. Yuujirou liked teasing people, and Toohru's problem was especially tease-worthy… not to mention that the first time he put it in words would be in the shower, washing his hair and – damn it, getting shampoo into his eyes. He gritted his teeth at the stinking, took a deep, moist breath and announced: "I'm in love."

"Hmmm…" Yuujirou said. "Alright."

This was beginning to get creepy. Toohru washed the rest of the bubbles out of his hair and practically dove for his towel, checking if his friend wasn't dying of asphyxiation as he tried to keep his laughter in.

Yuujirou spied him looking and gave him a flat stare.

Toohru shrugged and defended himself: "I said it's stupid."

"I'm not arguing, but I still haven't heard anything that would convince me to agree with you," Yuujirou replied, showing less excitement than he would while commenting on weather. Business-like, he turned off the water and stepped out of the stall shrouded in a cloud of vapour.

"Are you being funny?" Toohru asked. With his pants on he for a moment enjoyed not being a Princess anymore, but then he remembered that next year he would want to eat, and food meant money, and money meant work that was probably going to be much worse than cross-dressing, not at all enjoyable and would pay much less.

"You're not laughing, so that would be a no," Yuujirou replied calmly. "_Toohru_."

Toohru guessed his friend was being considerate – after all, Yuujirou understood that some things ought to be left alone and probably thought that he would compromise the trust they had if he used the confession against Toohru.

Toohru liked to think he wasn't that fragile, but perhaps the mere fact that his predicament affected him so much that others noticed and worried disproved that. He pulled on his t-shirt and found Yuujirou watching him, waiting for a response.

"What…?"

"Tell me."

"No," Toohru said stubbornly and shook his head to give himself more emphasis.

"So tell them," Yuujirou suggested, picking up countless bottles of hair products.

"No point," Toohru replied, and found himself, absurdly, smiling. "The person already told me loud and clear how they feel about me. I don't have a chance."

Yuujirou shrugged, unlocked the door and gallantly held it open for Toohru. "Alright. That's sad, but still not stupid."

"It's stupid that I keep moping about it even though I know there's nothing I can do about it!" Toohru grumbled, and Yuujirou apparently agreed with him, because he didn't argue. One could count on Yuujirou to argue whenever there was an opportunity, although, for some reason, his arguments with Toohru tended to be quiet and reasonable as opposed to his rows with just about everybody else… except when they were angry at each other. Then they didn't argue at all, just avoided the issue until it stopped being an issue.

Toohru liked to think he just brought out the better part of his friend.

x

Yuujirou pinched somebody's pen and scrawled a phone number on the back of Toohru's hand. "There," he concluded, critically checking his work. It was readable, and that was the point. "You can call me and whine when you get _lonely_, Toohruko-chan."

Toohru stripped the statement of all the defensive mocking in his head and had to laugh. Weren't they being ridiculous? How could he deal with this for the next two years? Or five years, if he counted college into it? They would grow closer and closer and see further and further into each other's heart, and in the end they would part and leave for the opposite sides of the country.

Toohru knew it was temporary, and already now, far from any true end, he felt like his heart was breaking. Perhaps it would be best if he stayed away and treasured this year as one of the most precious memories, up there with the faded image of his parents. He could hear the bus getting closer; it would arrive any moment now, and he would be alone again… and who knew what awaited him at his uncle's?

"Toohru…" Yuujirou said in a tone Toohru rarely heard before. "You _will_ come back next year, right?"

Toohru closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed and nodded.

It was a promise, and he kept his promises, like a man should. He would get a huge storage of superglue and keep on putting his heart together every time it shattered under the blows of kindness, Toohru mused as Yuujirou helped him get his luggage on board without being asked to, and he would buy dozens of pencils and keep on doodling until he got it right and drew a picture that captured that fleeting moment of utter devotion he was overcome with when the bus-door closed and the engine roared to life and Yuujirou lifted his hand to wave.


	3. Vacation

Part Three: Vacation

x

"Thank you for having me," Toohru said, and immediately regretted it, because his aunt's face fell when he didn't say the obligatory 'I'm home'. She tried to cover for it by smiling twice as brightly a moment later, but the awkwardness lingered.

"Toohru-chan," she said, coming forward to hug him, "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," Toohru replied gently, and only afterwards realised it that he had said it because she had wanted to hear it and not because that was simply how he felt. The host-like habits of Princess-work had become so intrinsic to him that he (quite like Yuujirou) used the skills subconsciously.

She let go and critically looked over Toohru, who tried not to display more than the anticipated exhaustion after a day of travelling. She didn't need to know that he had bruised ribs from wearing a corset and aching ankles from high heels.

"Your hair is getting a tad too long," she remarked.

Toohru was happy that she picked that relatively innocent thing to pay attention to. "I'm thinking of growing it out," he said.

"You will be very handsome either way," she replied, and then looked up as the front door opened and Toohru's uncle came in, having secured the car in the garage. "Was the trip alright?"

"Very quiet, actually," the man replied with a short, uncertain laugh. "Toohru doesn't talk much."

They were worried, Toohru could tell, that he didn't have many friends and became used to spending a lot of time on his own. Full of impressions, he should have been babbling a mile a minute, not think of… the same topics over and over.

"He must be tired, dear…"

Toohru nodded and politely declined help with his luggage. He lugged it all upstairs to his room – it looked desolate at first sight, with half-empty shelves and almost clinical tidiness – and set to unpacking. He had a lot to think about, anyway. One of the reasons why he had not participated in a conversation with his uncle during the ride was that he had looked for job offers. He had spotted a few, but the one that looked most likely was from the fish market. It wasn't too far, the hours would be long and the pay not insignificant…

"Toohru…?"

Toohru spun. Sayaka was standing in the doorway.

"Can I come in? Just for a while?"

Toohru would have liked to say no, but cowardice was a luxury he couldn't afford. He beckoned Sayaka into his room and continued stuffing his textbooks into the shelves and his notes into the uppermost drawer.

"How are you?" Sayaka asked, standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed. "And how is Shihoudani-san?"

"Uh… he's alright," Toohru stammered. He really shouldn't have been surprised by the inquiry.

Sayaka shook her head. Wringing the rim of her shirt in her hands, she reworded her inquiry. "What I mean is… how are you two doing?"

Toohru actually lost balance and pulled half the books on the shelf down on his head. "_Sayaka_! We told you we were just pretending-"

"But you like him."

Personally, Toohru thought he was quite out of the realm of 'like' and into the dimension of more serious words, but: "Even if that were so, Yuujirou is not interested in me-"

"I think he is," Sayaka replied solemnly. "He jumped at the chance to kiss you awfully fast, as soon as he had an excuse. He's just insecure."

An insecure Yuujirou? That was some kind of oxymoron, wasn't it? Then again, that time when Toohru went with Yuujirou to visit his family… Yuujirou had been insecure, hadn't he? Somehow, when it came to the really important people and really important relationships, Yuujirou lost his cool head right along with his Princess self-confidence, and began to doubt himself and hesitate. He had needed a push from Toohru back then…

Besides, hadn't Yuujirou said it himself? He was good with giving advice as long as the matter didn't concern him personally, but once he was involved in a problem, he drowned in it…

"No," Toohru replied, shaking his head to clear it. It was too hard already. If he entertained some stupid hope now, he would only end up hurting worse.

"If you think so," Sayaka said doubtfully. "You'd be great together, if you ask me. But anyway," she took a deep breath and smiled, "I'm glad you've come back home, Toohru, even if only for the holiday."

Toohru smiled back. "I'm glad to be home, little sister."

x

"You're sure you want to do this, kid?" the old man asked, rubbing his almost bald head.

"Yes, sir," Toohru replied, standing straight and trying to convey his resolve. "I promise I will work hard."

"I don't doubt that," the man said, still uncertain.

Toohru had meandered in between the different _nakaoroshi gyousha_ until he found one where the boss didn't look like he was ready to gut the employees as well as the fishes. It was a long trip, but he felt like he had struck gold at the end of it.

"You have permission from your parents, right?"

Toohru nodded and handed over a paper. "It's from my guardians. I don't actually have parents."

The man wiped his hands on a towel, took the letter and cursorily glanced over it. He gave it back with oily fingerprints.

"That's fine, kid. But you'll have to be here every day at four a.m. It's hard work and, don't get me wrong, but you don't seem like you're very strong."

Toohru didn't get it wrong. This wasn't the first employer he had tried to talk to, after all: at times he had been turned away already on the threshold, because after one look at him it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to handle lugging frozen tuna for hours.

"I'm used to hard work, sir," Toohru replied. Granted, dressing up in drag and cheering on clubs was hardly comparable to fish market, but he knew all about physical pain, long hours, utter exhaustion and the impossibility of giving up.

"You know what, kid?" The old man said and stuck a European-style pipe into his mouth. "I'll try it with you."

x

Toohru caught the scent of _karei shio-yaki_ and promptly excused himself from dinner. It was his first free day since he had started working, and he couldn't quite put in words how much he had enjoyed not having to go to the market and gut fish.

He would rather go hungry than actually eat fish, but that wasn't something he wanted to tell his aunt, so he simply complained about a headache and went off to 'study'. He spent about an hour trying to find the appeal of one of Sayaka's mangas, and eventually gave up, settling down with a real book.

"Toohru-chan?"

Hastily, Toohru swept the literature under his pillow and grabbed the nearest school-related thing he got his hands on. With it in his hands, he went to open the door for his aunt – she would have let herself in by now, unless she had her hands full.

As he had expected, she was carrying a tray.

"I brought you tea and a bit of cake, in case you felt better later on." She crossed the room and set her load down on Toohru's desk. "Your uncle and I are going out tonight. Will you and Sayaka be alright here?"

As far as Toohru could tell from his observations, Sayaka had been completely cured of her obsession, and even in case she 'relapsed', he was confident he could pacify her. Besides, lately she seemed to be rooting for another impossible pairing involving Toohru. "We'll be fine," he reassured his aunt.

"I'm glad you've forgiven her."

Toohru didn't think there was much to forgive; after all, it had been partly his own fault that Sayaka had convinced herself they were meant to be.

"Geography?" his aunt asked out of blue.

Toohru blinked. He didn't have an idea what she was asking about, and therefore he couldn't think of how to react… Then he realised she was looking at his hands. He was holding his geography notebook.

"Uhm… right…" he stammered. "We didn't finish learning about South America in class…" He hoped he had gotten the continent right, and that his less than convincing performance would be ascribed to the supposed headache rather than him spending his rare free time fooling around.

"You should relax more, Toohru-chan," his aunt admonished him. "All work and no play will affect your health."

Toohru, a bit ashamed – she was worried about him because he pretended to be studying – mutely nodded, and then wished her a lot of fun on her outing.

As soon as she was gone he descended on the food, letting the notebook fall where it would. Later, with a full belly, he went to pick it up and put it where it belonged, when it occurred to him that he had his doodling sheet in it, and should really move it elsewhere unless he wanted someone to find it.

However, the sheet was gone.

x

Toohru was used to switching off all his unneeded faculties by now and saving the leftover energies for the life-support systems. At times he had to reach beyond his limits to drag his body home.

He grew to hate having a room upstairs.

He also regretted that he had very little contact with his family, because of his working hours and the drain he experienced. He barely exchanged greetings with his aunt – his uncle had yet to return from work and Sayaka was out, presumably with her friends – and trudged on towards the kitchen.

His aunt, familiar with his routine by now, pulled a plate out of the microwave and set it on the table.

Toohru gratefully sank onto the chair.

"Thank you," he mumbled.

"I wish you wouldn't work yourself so hard," the woman replied, but didn't actually expect a response. They had had the same debate several times; Toohru had it with his uncle, too, _and_ with Sayaka, one time even against all three of them at once, but their arguments about why he should cease didn't ring true to him.

Sayaka, desperate to usurp more of Toohru's time, had actually threatened to inform Yuujirou. Toohru didn't quite get the point of the threat, so he had given her the go-ahead. So far, he suspected, Sayaka continuously failed in obtaining Yuujirou's address.

"Ah, Toohru, I almost forgot!" his aunt exclaimed when Toohru lifted himself from the seat into a more or less upright position. "There was a letter for you in the mail; I put it on your bed-"

Toohru nodded and on his way up the stairs contemplated the possible senders. It might have been the school, but then his uncle would have opened it himself. His head got stuck on the idea, though, and wouldn't move away, except to the fish he had gutted that day. He knew it was another night full of nightmares for him, and hoped that whatever whoever wanted from him wasn't going to add to his steadily rising mountain of stress-inducing circumstances.

He wasn't sure he could deal with much more. Even these last few steps were… somehow… higher than usually. So many parts of Toohru's body hurt that it all joined into one general hurt. He wished he could fall into his soft warm bed and spend the next week there without having to move, but he knew tomorrow was going to be the same as today… and yesterday…

Finally, _finally_ he reached the top of the staircase and ambled over to his room. His aunt had opened the window; Toohru shut it again to keep the noise of the street on the outside. He struggled out of his clothes, eventually gave up half-way through and fell onto the covers in his trousers.

Something crinkled. Toohru's tired mind connected the sound with his aunt's information about a mysterious letter. Awkwardly, he struggled to roll over and then pawed the mattress until his fingers closed around an envelope. He rolled back and squinted at the address.

It was, indeed, a letter for him. Moreover, as he had deduced, it wasn't from the school. The sender seemed to be… Shihoudani Yuujirou.

"What the heck…" he muttered, bemused and as worried as his current mental capacity allowed him to be. What could Yuujirou want that couldn't wait three weeks until they were back to Fujimori for their second year?

He had to rip the envelope practically to shreds before it yielded the folded piece of paper inside. It was a page from a notebook, apparently, with a short and concise message: "Hey, Toohru. How are you?"

Toohru closed his eyes and let the letter flutter to the floor. Such a banal query, it seemed, but when he thought of the one who wrote it, he could see the slight narrowing of golden eyes, the shrewd look that could penetrate the furthest reaches of Toohru's heart, the pages of text in between the lines. Yuujirou was asking how Toohru was getting on with his family, whether Sayaka hasn't harassed him, if he had not called because he had nothing to tell, or because he didn't want Yuujirou to know just how bad things were.

It felt good, that fantasy. On the brink of sleep, Toohru's mind for a moment wasn't sure if it really was just a memory, or if Yuujirou was there in the room with him, and Toohru sank into the soft bedding with oddly giddy warmth spreading inside him.

x

He woke up smelling of fish and hating the nameless person who had invented the alarm-clock.

On his way to bathroom, he unwittingly stepped on the remains of the letter from Yuujirou – it looked like a rabid ferret had tried to shred it – and stumbled over his yesterday's clothes. He forgot to grab a clean towel, too, so when he got out of the shower, smelling less repugnantly but just as unhappy about being awake while stars were still shining, he dripped water all the way back to his room.

Should he reply to the ridiculous piece of post, Toohru wondered, pulling on a t-shirt. What could he write? 'Sorry, Yuujirou, I'm too busy to string more than dozen words together?'

No, there was no point. He would be back to Fujimori in twenty days, and if Yuujirou so wished, they could spend an entire night exchanging news, but until that time Yuujirou would have to be patient.

x

"-Toohru…"

Someone was shaking him. Toohru grunted and pressed his face deeper into his pillow.

"_Toohru_!"

When even greater insistence failed to pull Toohru from his somnolent state, he was uncompromisingly turned over and his face was splashed with cold water.

Since Toohru was fairly sure that the cold, wet feeling wasn't a part of his dream, he forced his eyelids to get unstuck and let him squint at the world. The sun was low and red – which meant that it was evening, maybe around seven o'clock, and he would have at least seven more hours to sleep.

Somewhat encouraged by the thought, he raised himself on his elbows.

"You should at least shower before you go to sleep, Toohru," his uncle admonished him, but there was very little actual demand beyond the statement.

The man must have pitied him, Toohru thought, and it made him a bit sad, but that was okay. He wasn't actually causing any trouble to his uncle and aunt this time, which was exactly what he had aimed for. There was no way for him to repay them for their hospitality – and he understood it would have hurt them if he tried – but at least he could make sure he didn't impose on them too much.

"Yes, uncle," he replied obediently. He could try, at the very least, though judging by his experience from the past week and half, he wouldn't actually be able to.

"You have got a letter from your school. I hope you don't mind, but I opened it."

Since Toohru had expected that, he didn't mind in the least. As a matter of fact, it made his life a bit easier if someone else read the official text and communicated the gist to him broken down into simpler wording.

"Your aunt told me that you had almost everything you would need, but she would still like to take you shopping."

Toohru nodded. It was not a bad idea to replace some of the clothes that had gotten too frayed, and he should get a pair of sport shoes, too… and books. He would need to buy them this year…

"I should get my salary in two days. I'll have Sunday free, so we can go then," Toohru offered.

Toohru's uncle sighed. "We don't expect _you_ to pay-"

"No," Toohru cut in resolutely. "I've caused you enough trouble. I'll be happy if aunt – or Sayaka, or you – want to go with me, but I'll be paying for everything with my own money."

"Toohru-"

Toohru shook his head.

His uncle hung his head in defeat; it hurt to see him sad, but Toohru simply couldn't accept money from them anymore. He felt too independent, too _adult_ to slide into a child's habit of accepting things from their parents without any reciprocity.

"Very well," the man said eventually. On his way out of the room he paused and glanced back. "Go grab a shower before you fall back asleep, would you, Toohru?"


	4. Family Trip

Part Four: Family Trip

x

On an otherwise perfectly ordinary Thursday, a relatively lively Toohru (since the day before had been a second Wednesday in month and therefore free for him) stood ankle-deep in fish-parts, listened to the distant voices of middlemen haggling with buyers and cut up mackerel after mackerel.

Then the monotony was broken, when the salesman's assistant from the stall outside stuck his head into the room and yelled: "Is there a Kuono Toohru-kun here?"

"That's me," Toohru said, emptying the belly of another glassy-eyed fish.

"There's a young lady asking for you outside," the man told him.

Toohru glanced at the boss, who snorted and nodded to the door. "Don't be long or you can go straight home. We're not here to canoodle."

Toohru, baffled, nodded back and walked up the aisle, trying not to step into the bigger piles of fish intestines. He had known from day one that seafood would never taste the same for him, but now he worried that he wouldn't ever be able to put a piece of sushi into his mouth without sicking up… And what the heck was Sayaka thinking coming here? Had something happened, or was she simply sinking back into habit?

Toohru sincerely wished he wouldn't be met with more irrational insistences to marry someone. He braced himself and stepped through the portiere.

Sayaka wasn't there – but somebody else was.

"Yuujirou?"

Toohru couldn't quite believe his eyes, and suddenly he was glad that he had the rubber apron on, a massive knife in his hand and that he carried bits of fish-guts on himself, because otherwise he might have done something ridiculous like throwing himself around his friend's neck. It was doubly fortunate, because after his brain caught up with the notion of Yuujirou being _here_, Toohru noticed the three people standing a couple of feet off to the side: the Shihoudani family.

With the grim knowledge of how horrible he must have looked – black circles under his eyes, hair a sweaty mess prevented from dripping into his eyes by a makeshift headband and, gods, the _knife_ he was holding ready to open something's stomach – Toohru stared at the concrete floor, begging his dead parents to not let Yuujirou's parents forbid their son to associate with somebody like him.

A warm hand caught Toorhu's chin and forced him to look up. Yuujirou studied his face, and he didn't like what he saw. "_Toohru_."

He was so damn close, and he smelled like comfort and safety, like the P-room – like home. Had Toohru had a gun in his hand, he might have put the barrel to his own temple and pulled the trigger.

"I've got to get back…" Toohru said weakly and backed away, though not before checking Yuujirou's watch. "I'll have a break at ten."

His friend nodded solemnly. "I'll be here."

x

Yuujirou was there, with a hamburger, chips and a huge paper cup of cola in his hands. For the second time in his life, and compared to the previous occasion Toohru was much saner right now, he found certain angel-like qualities in Yuujirou.

"I've got half an hour," Toohru warned, grabbing the cup and taking a hearty gulp. The sugar helped him feel better instantly.

"Mum and dad are waiting outside."

It was a sufficient warning for Toohru to start procrastinating. He liked Yuujirou's parents, but he intended to lengthen the moment they had in private for as long as possible, so he dragged his feet and every few steps paused to take another swallow of the coke.

During one such pause Yuujirou finally lost patience with him and pinned him with a glare. Toohru could have shrugged it off, probably, all too used to it, but in those instances he normally turned and walked away and that wasn't exactly applicable in this situation.

"Fish market?" Yuujirou asked.

Toohru sighed and stared into the swirling depths of his drink. "I didn't want to cause more trouble for my family. They already had to pay out a lot of money because of me – the doctors Sayaka needed were expensive-"

"You're such a regular little martyr, Toohru," Yuujirou snarled.

"Says the man who didn't want to go back home to his mother because he thought he would ruin some kind of fictional 'perfect family' image!" Toohru shot back. Where did Yuujirou get off criticising him? At least Toohru didn't need to drag him along just to face his own family.

"Touché," Yuujirou grumbled, tore the paper cup out of Toohru's hand and pushed the hamburger in. Bloody mother hen, but much appreciated. "How is your situation different from mine back then? Couldn't you solve this if you talked to your uncle?"

Damn Yuujirou for taking one look at Toohru and seeing beneath the masks to the reality of just how run down Toohru really was.

"They're not my parents," Toohru said, unpacking the burger.

For once his friend seemed like he didn't understand. That was probably better than if he had misunderstood and dismissed Toohru's problems as angsting or thought him to be an ungrateful cuckoo chick.

"I mean, they adopted me and took care of me and everything; they're my uncle and aunt, my family…" He paused and took a deep breath to brace himself. "…but it doesn't feel like they're my parents."

Yuujirou scrutinised him, and Toohru was proud at himself when he managed not to blush. The hamburger was still warm, and he decided to concentrate on it for a while, letting Yuujirou watch him to the boy's heart's content.

"Alright, Toohru," Yuujirou said eventually, surprising Toohru into almost choking on a piece of tomato. He was still staring, and his worry didn't abate just because he had approved of Toohru's decision (as if Toohru had needed his approval!). "You're not sick, are you? You're eating and sleeping and everything?"

"Yeah," Toohru reassured him, crumpled up the wrapping left in his hand and brazenly let it fall onto the floor. The tourists had vacated for the day, leaving behind enough muck to busy ten Hercules', anyway. "It's only two weeks left now. Unfortunately."

"_Unfortunately_?" Yuujirou repeated incredulously.

Toohru grabbed the cup of coke from his hands and set out towards the nearest exit. He was looking forward to the start of term, of course, to being back with everyone (Akira, Mikoto, _Yuujirou_), but his financial problems would be far from solved by this fish-market stint. "I won't have enough money to last me throughout the school-year. I'll have to find a part-time job anyway."

Yuujirou growled. "You may find another job only when _I_ declare you fit to do so."

"You're not my keeper!" Toohru snapped. Then, stepping out into the sunlit parking lot and spying the Shihoudani family settled on the bench on the other side, he took time to reconsider. The mere fact that these four people were here made it more than obvious that Yuujirou cared – cared more than Toohru intended to let anyone care for him – and most certainly didn't deserve to be shouted at.

He paused, let his friend caught up to him, and tried a smile to soften his exclamation. "But within reason, alright. Thanks for… you know." For caring enough to come all the way here to check on him (Toohru didn't believe the disguise of a family trip for a second), for bothering to confront him about the issues… for pushing on unafraid to hurt Toohru in order to get him to talk.

"Stupid," Yuujirou grumbled, and prodded Toohru between his shoulder-blades. "Move. They're waiting for you."

x

It took less than five minutes for Yuujirou's step-dad to lose control of Shinnousuke. Toohru couldn't actually comprehend the high-pitched screaming, but he understood that the kid wanted (or didn't want) something, and the man wasn't willing to provide (cease).

Yuujirou's mum, seated on the bench next to the family's backpack, rolled her eyes and silently begged Yuujirou to go and pacify his brother. Apparently, once Yuujirou felt integrated, it took him no time to charm all family members into adoring him. That was so much like him…

"Now, Toohru-kun," the woman said conspiratorially the second Yuujirou's attention was fully on his brother, "you're going to tell me the truth."

Toohru subconsciously took a step backwards, away from the suspiciously smiling female.

She laughed. "Don't you worry, Toohru-kun. I'm not going to pry and extract your secrets, or the things you wouldn't want a virtual stranger to know. Nothing about your family or about your reasons for working like this…"

But, if she didn't want to know that, Toohru wondered, what _was_ she asking about?

"Tell me about my son and yourself."

"Yuujirou and I?" Toohru repeated, confused.

"You seem very close," the woman said. "He was beside himself when you didn't phone for a week – and right now, you looked like you could read each other's thoughts."

Damn them, observant women! Toohru thought, and instantly was ashamed of himself. This was Yuujirou's mother!

He looked over to where his friend had effectively silenced his little brother, holding him up and playing some trivial game that elicited a lot of giggling.

"We spend a lot of time together, so we're kind of… attuned," he offered. It wasn't entirely true either. Toohru and Yuujirou had been attuned since day one, since the moment they had met, practically, and the understanding only grew deeper and deeper as they discovered one another's quirks and learnt to deal with them.

Toohru realised his eyes had lingered on the curve of Yuujirou's cheek for way too long, and hastily turned away. He was almost certain he hadn't been blushing in the beginning, but the look Yuujirou's mother gave him, assessing and, indeed, soul-searching (just like her son's), made blood run into his face.

"My husband finally managed to wheedle the truth about the 'Princesses' out of my son. Yuu-chan doesn't talk about you much, but you figure in most of his stories. I have been wondering why, but I think I understood after you came to our house and I saw you two interact." She paused and looked at the three male members of her household. "It didn't take Yuu-chan much effort to convince us to take this trip."

Toohru didn't say anything. He could have reassured her that nothing was going on, not really, and that whatever he might have felt was strictly one-sided and therefore not worth any concern. He tried to, even, but swiftly closed his mouth. The knowledge was enough. He couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.

"Toohru, catch!"

Just in time, Toohru braced himself for the impact, and received armful of a sniggering child. Shinnousuke looked at him with huge brown eyes, surprised in the first instance, and then went on giggling.

"A'ma plane!" the child insisted. "I flied!"

"Did you?" Toohru questioned.

Shinnousuke flapped his arms. "I flied like that!"

"Then you were a bird, not a plane," Toohru corrected him and looked up at Yuujirou over the child's head.

Yuujirou nodded. Toohru shifted his grip on the little boy and threw him, backwards, into Yuujirou's waiting arms. He spent about a second feeling jealous, and then was, unexpectedly, pulled into a game of tag when Shinnousuke insisted on being let down and running around.

Kids were a lot of work.

Out of breath, Toohru sank onto the bench next to Mrs Shihoudani and gratefully accepted a bottle with some kind of lemonade from her. He glanced at her watch and found he would have to get going soon.

Shinnousuke, perched on Toohru's knees, met his mother's eyes and, brightly grinning, announced: "Shin-chan likes Too-chan. Can I marry him?"

Toohru snorted. After he had witnessed the same question directed at Shinnousuke's brother, it didn't shock him too much. There was too much irony in the inquiry, though, and he forbade himself to think about it, or he would have ended up depressed. Two weeks left, and then he would have time and opportunity to contemplate which Shihoudani he wished had showed that kind of interest in him.

Mrs Shihoudani sighed, apparently already accustomed to denying her youngest son his marriage prospects. "Toohru-kun is a boy; you cannot marry him, Shin-chan. But, when you're grown up," she cast a sly glance at Yuujirou, who was talking to his step-father, but didn't fail to notice her looking, "maybe you could ask Toohru-kun on a date?"

Toohru swallowed, certain he had gone quite wide-eyed. That wasn't subtle in the least. This lady was telling him that she was quite aware of his feelings for her elder son and _didn't disapprove_. That was staggering, and Toohru's heart swelled with appreciation for the woman even though he was very much aware that nothing would ever come of it. Toohru doubted he would ever (and hoped he wouldn't) sprout breasts big enough to attract Yuujirou's attention.

"We'll see, Shin-chan," Toohru said with the Princess smile that the kid liked so much. "If you're anything like your brother, you will be able to get a date with anybody you look at."

The understanding smile Yuujirou's mother gave Toohru sent a shiver down his spine, but he did his best to shrug it off and smile back, feigning carefreedom. Shinnousuke kept giggling at him, the little bundle of happiness. Had this been anybody else's family, Toohru would have been quite jealous, but for one he thought that Yuujirou above anybody else deserved it, and for the other he was too infatuated with the boy to be jealous of him.

"I have to go," he said. "It was a pleasure meeting you again, Mrs Shihoudani."

"Likewise, Toohru-kun," she replied and somehow managed to take Shinnousuke from him without having to stand.

Toohru was forced to pinky-promise that he was going to visit again someday, and by that time Mr Shihoudani was there to shake his hand.

Yuujirou, for some reason, wouldn't be put off the idea of accompanying Toohru back inside the market.

They walked close to each other; so close that it occurred to Toohru with a sharp and painful clarity that they had not touched – not at all except that one brief moment in the morning when Yuujirou had forced him to lift his head, and the prod to the back. It seemed impossible to him that he could let his friend go away, leave for the next two weeks, without any significant physical contact between them… however, he couldn't make initialising it seem natural.

"By the way," he asked, just so that they would maintain _some_ contact, "how did you know where to look for me?"

"Your cousin told me, of course," Yuujirou replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Sayaka?"

"Mhm." Yuujirou gave Toohru a glare that was rather difficult to interpret, since it could have pertained to various instances. "She phoned and then came to meet us at the station. Actually, she wanted to invite us over to your uncle's house, but couldn't think of a way to explain it to her parents."

"How did she get your number?" Toohru marvelled, incredulous.

"I wonder."

"Must have sneaked into my room…" Toohru guessed and sighed. Sayaka was really unstoppable once an idea got fixed in her head. "She didn't harass you?"

"Stop being a worrywart, Toohru. I can take care of myself."

Toohru shut up about it. He didn't believe that Yuujirou would ask for help unless he was forced to ask for help, but the easy annoyance was a good enough clue that Sayaka had, indeed, not harassed him. So, topic-switch…

"You're going back right away?" If not, maybe Toohru could force himself to stay conscious in the late afternoon…

"Have to," Yuujirou dashed his hopes. "While you're idling away here, Mikoto and I are coaching the new Princesses."

The new Princesses! Toohru had completely forgotten. It was his luck that Akira was the Student Council President and not Arisada, because otherwise he wouldn't have been let home during this holiday. "What are they like?"

Yuujirou grimaced. "Matsuoka is alright. I don't like Izumi."

Toohru tried to match the names to the boys they had chosen. Matsuoka was the kid without parents – he reminded Toohru a bit of himself, and he had wanted the kid to get the benefits, even if just for one year. Maybe Toohru saw a bit of himself in the boy. Izumi, on the other hand… he had long, blonde hair and his parents owned half-a-country and rarely spent time with him. He was kind of lonely… kind of like Yuujirou, and Toohru had his doubts about why Izumi was selected, although he had a very good idea about why Yuujirou decided he didn't like the boy. It was the hair, wasn't it?

"They'll be alright," Yuujirou concluded after a while of contemplation.

Of course they would be. If they even thought of not being, there were three former Princesses ready to jump in and _make_ them shape up.

"Good," Toohru said. "Gotta go."

"See you."

Toohru took one step forth before Yuujirou grabbed his arm and pulled him back into a half-hug. He regretted it immediately, too: "Ugh, you stink like something scraped off the bottom of the ocean."

Toohru smiled, pretty much blissed-out. "Getting used to it."


	5. New Princesses

Part Five: New Princesses

x

Toohru allowed himself a moment to yearn for the days when they had the corner room and private bath and all sorts of exceptions made for them, but he knew they still didn't have it all that bad. In other rooms there were three or even four boys staying together; Toohru and Yuujirou had been allowed to retain a smidgen of privacy.

Mikoto was the unlucky one to be moved together with two other boys; however, his popularity as a Princess had not abated in between the terms and he had been molested before he had a chance to unpack. Kazuki-senpai, who had succeeded Tsuji-senpai as the dorm leader, had to relocate poor scarred, shrieking Mikoto into a room on his own – thence Mikoto's current absence from the Student Council room.

"I don't think Mikoto will be offended if we don't wait for him…" Akira said.

Toohru was shocked – and appalled. On the surface Akira perhaps might have seemed shy and tentative, but there was an instant motion among the four boys standing behind him, and Toohru suffered a déjà vu: Akira's hold over his 'subjects' was even tighter than Arisada's had been.

While Mitaka maintained a somewhat inappropriate physical proximity to the Student Council President, the other three (that had yet to be introduced to Toohru) bowed and with mutters of 'roger, Sakamoto-sama' burst into a flurry of activity.

Toohru measured the distance between himself and Yuujirou – they were settled on the sofa as usually – and with a feeling of doom deemed it too far to inch across and remain inconspicuous.

"Is this creepy?" Toohru whispered.

Yuujirou solemnly nodded.

Akira laughed it off.

One of the toadies opened the door and on the threshold stood two gi- _no, boys in drag_, supplied the trained part of Toohru's brain. They were… beautiful, naturally, but that was to be expected. Matsuoka was sharp-edged and stoical: his dark wig was in curls, and the glasses enhanced rather than detracted from his appearance. Not so fortunately, there was nothing at all 'cute' about him.

Izumi, on the other hand, was cuteness itself. He was a lighter blond than Yuujirou, wore a pink dress and kept giggling. The utter absence of any hint of manliness destined him to be a most successful Princess (kind of like Mikoto), but at the same time made it likely that Toohru wouldn't like him much. He was altogether too girly.

"Ah, and here are the new Princesses!" Akira exclaimed. With a wide smile, he gestured to the sofa. "Make yourself comfortable. I believe, for Toohru's sake, we should start with introductions."

Toohru rose and moved to stand next to the sofa, by Yuujirou's other side, at once getting further away from the newly-realised danger of Akira's Student Council President Powers, and avoiding too close a meeting with the Princesses. He was still insanely jealous of them, and showing it would have made for a disastrous first impression.

"No need," he said to Akira. "I know Matsuoka Kiriya-kun and Izumi Tomoe-kun," Toohru continued, offering a nod to the respective boy with each name he spoke. He received two incredulous stares in return.

"This guy was a Princess?" Izumi yelped, even _sounding_ like a girl.

Toohru scowled. He hadn't thought he had changed that much. Though, after a day of travelling, dressed in baggy clothes, tad too thin and with bloodshot eyes… well, it was understandable that he didn't look his best.

"Hey!" Yuujirou jumped in, scowling at the poor rich kid. "Where do you get off-"

"Gentlemen," Toohru cut in, clasping Yuujirou's shoulder. His friend met his eyes, nodded, and ceased the argument. Toohru then looked at Izumi, who stared back at him wide-eyed.

"Seeing that right there," Matsuoka muttered, "I believe it."

Akira chuckled. "Indeed. Toohru was a most excellent Princess. You might feel privileged to work under his tutelage."

Izumi's wide-eyed stare immediately transformed into a glare again.

Yuujirou scoffed. "You might be glad you're getting _any_ kind of advice. Arisada had left _us_ to flounder just so he could have a good laugh at our expense."

"Nevertheless, you all did very well," Akira complimented them.

"With the possible exception of Mikoto," Yuujirou couldn't prevent himself from adding.

Toohru tried to bite the inside of his cheek, but the snigger escaped anyway.

"Now that we all know each other, could we go and unpack?" Toohru asked. He figured there was a lot to discuss and plan, but from what he had seen of Akira it would be last year all over again: Akira would prepare everything and manipulate everyone into executing his will. Toohru would receive his instructions and do as he was told.

"We still have to-"

Yuujirou stood rapidly, cutting off Mitaka's protest. "Then go ahead and do it," he said with utter lack of concern. "Toohru and I are going. See you in the morning in class, Akira."

Before Toohru realised what was going on, he had been dragged out of the room, as usually, by his elbow. They met Mikoto by the school-gates, and Toohru was about to warn him to turn right back and save himself, but Yuujirou put his index finger to Toohru's lips.

Toohru was, needless to say, too tongue-tied to manage to formulate a warning, and remained such all the way back to their new room.

They unpacked their things in barely disturbed silence. Toohru was too busy thinking about how happy he was to be back here and with-

"By the way," Yuujirou said, stuffing his (and Toohru's stolen) pencils into the uppermost drawer, faking nonchalance that Toohru didn't believe for a second, "it would be annoying if you kept moping around like you did at the end of the term, so I'm telling you to stop worrying about it."

Toohru, utterly baffled, glanced over. "Worrying about what?"

"About being in love with me, of course," Yuujirou replied evenly. As though – damn him – he was talking about weather.

"How did you…"

Toohru let his shirts fall back into his suitcase and heavily sat down on his bed, scared that his legs would give out. How did Yuujirou know? Had Toohru been that obvious? Had Sayaka fed him some story? Or… could it be? Could Yuujirou's mum have told him?

Yuujirou sat down onto the swivel-chair and crossed his hands over the backrest. "You told me you were in love," he said. "There are three people who could plausibly be the object of your affection, and I'd say this cleared the matter up," he said, lifting Toohru's missing doodling sheet. There was a crude but unmistakable portrait of Yuujirou sketched on it.

Toohru sighed and hung his head. It was better to stare at his knees than be forced to confront this. And, really, he wanted to blow up about Yuujirou stealing his things, _private_ things, but somehow his mouth refused to open and articulate the sounds. He felt as if all energy had been drained from him in one fell swoop.

The _shame_.

Wait a second-

What the heck did he have to be ashamed of? Sure, there was the embarrassment of a confession, but that happened to everyone once or twice before they figured out how to be more confident. And there was the fact that his feelings were doomed to be one-sided, but that also happened to almost everyone. Toohru wasn't forcing his attention on anyone, didn't demand any kind of consideration for himself based on a few errant emotions… Basically, the fact that he was infatuated with a boy was not a reason to be ashamed.

He had every right to fall in love with whomever he chose. Or didn't choose, as the case may be, but some things were just inevitable.

"I would have preferred not to be put into this situation," Toohru said, skilled enough in projecting self-confidence, after having been a Princess for a year, to keep his voice steady and strong. "However, seeing as you apparently want to hear my confession, here it is: this idiot's in love with you."

Yuujirou stared at him for a while, and then began laughing quietly. Toohru knew him well enough to interpret it as genuine mirth rather than ridicule.

"You're not an idiot… not always, at least. I'll have you know you've got great taste."

Toohru heaved a sigh of relief. Yuujirou wasn't the homophobic type, in fact, he tended to aim his barbs at everyone and everything equally (with the single exception of Mikoto who _asked_ to be teased _constantly_), but that didn't mean he would be comfortable having that kind of feelings directed at him. That he could joke about it so easily meant he wasn't too disconcerted.

"You're sure you want to room with me?" Toohru asked, just in case.

"Do you think so little of me? That I would write you off as a queer and run for the hills?" Yuujirou said quietly, projecting at the same time hurt, anger and curiosity. "Or is it that you think I think so little of you? Because I'm really not afraid that you would do anything to me against my will."

Toohru rubbed his face with his palms and sighed. "Think little of you…?" he repeated. "Impossible."

He could have waxed on about air to breathe, sun, moon and stars, about rainbows and blossoming cherries, but none of that was fitting or descriptive enough. What he felt wasn't that all-encompassing, that romantic or that banal.

Apparently, though, the 'impossible' was fitting in all aspects.

x

The only difference after Yuujirou's confession of Toohru's feelings for him was that Yuujirou didn't invite him on trips to pick up girls anymore. Truth to be told, Yuujirou had gone on a single one, came back early enough to gauge that he had been unsuccessful (again) and in a bad enough mood to guess that he had been mistaken for a girl (again).

Toohru never got how anyone could have mistaken Yuujirou for a girl. To him, Yuujirou had looked like a boy even as a Princess. That probably should have been Toohru's first clue that he wasn't exactly straight.

It was the Saturday after the Princess Announcement Ceremony, and the school was already split into three distinct groups: Matsuoka's fans (majority of them formerly Toohru's), Izumi's fans (majority formerly Yuujirou's) and die-hard Mikoto fans, who refused to believe that Princess Mikoto wasn't a Princess anymore.

Yuujirou and Toohru (who did feel they were being a tad too mean, but couldn't help himself) teased their friend relentlessly, had been accused of hating him again and subsequently ditched. Yuujirou had smuggled a bottle of wine into the dorms amidst the general uproar and confusion, and Toohru submitted to the temptation easily.

It became apparent that Yuujirou was past tipsiness when he asked: "How sloshed would you have to be to feel me up?"

Toohru, buzzed enough not to take it to heart and get all melancholy, let his head fall back against the frame of his bed (they were sitting on the floor amidst Yuujirou's brand new layer of onion crisp crumbs) and stared at the ceiling. "I'd feel you up the second you gave me permission," he said honestly, because chances were that Yuujirou even drunk could have told whether he was telling the truth. Anyway, he didn't see the advantages of fogging up his real feelings anymore, and the more comfortable Yuujirou was around him despite them, the better for him. "But I'd prefer it if we were both sober."

"Hmm…" Yuujirou mumbled, nodding. He set his glass off to the side and took an uncouth swig straight from the bottle. "I'm not into boys. I like _chesty_ girls."

"I know," Toohru replied, smiling wryly.

Yuujirou was on the roll, even though it wasn't certain whether he actually intended to tell all that to anybody. "I've copped a feel a few times, but there's one important thing about a girl's chest guys usually don't tell you." He offered the bottle to Toohru, who took it (if for nothing else than to prevent his friend from overindulging), and after a pause that seemed to have been made for effect, delivered the point: "It doesn't make you care about the owner."

Toohru began to suspect something. He checked the bottle in his hands. There was still about a third of the wine in it; considering that Toohru had had two glasses, Yuujirou could not have drunk more than him. Yuujirou wasn't a lightweight, he was sure, therefore… it was an act.

Yuujirou wasn't at all drunk, and this charade was his way of getting around his insecurity.

Toohru felt moved.

"So, you see," Yuu went on bravely, "if I had to pick between a chest with some accessory on one side, and a person I actually cared about on the other, it's not that difficult a decision."

Feeling stupid because his eyes were welling, and afraid that he was going to cry, Toohru protested: "You don't have to _pick_, Yuujirou. This isn't some kind of twisted 'all or nothing' deal. I didn't even want you to know – I'm first and foremost your friend. That's far more important than a few importunate… feelings."

"Desires?" Yuujirou suggested impishly.

"You want to have a grown-up talk?" Toohru asked, wiping his face with his sleeve before his friend noticed he was crying. "Okay. Yes, your friendship is incomparably more important to me than my desire for you. Incidentally, I would have understood if you had asked to share a room with someone else, and I'm really glad that you'd stayed with me. I'll give you my word that I won't-"

"When you talk like this," Yuujirou cut in, rubbing his forehead, frowning in, maybe, confusion, "all honest and straightforward and… _caring_, I guess… I don't think I would ever find anyone else who would treat me like this…"

Toohru lifted the bottle to his mouth, feeling like he sorely needed the alcohol at the moment, but Yuujirou pulled his arm away and forced Toohru to look into his eyes.

"So stop snivelling about how you won't scare me with your 'homo' touching, and make me _want_ it."

Time seemed to have frozen. Toohru gaped. His friend, the friend who had repeatedly proclaimed himself straighter than an arrow, was spurring Toohru into trying to woo him…? It sounded impossible, but Yuujirou was being honest, hundred percent, and he had orchestrated this farce of an early-afternoon drinking binge to get this off his chest.

And, damn it, Toohru was going to do all in his power to show Yuujirou…

"Alright." Toohru stood up and brushed off his trousers. Feigning indifference, artlessly enough not to fool his friend, he pulled on his trainers and, fairly balanced despite the consumed wine, went for the door.

He had gotten Yuujirou curious, he could tell.

"I'm going to the grocer's. Anything you want?"

When he didn't get an answer, he turned around. Yuujirou was staring at him, surprised, reevaluating him.

Toohru smiled.

Understanding dawned on Yuujirou's face, and the corners of his mouth quirked upwards in a smirk. "Crisps. Onion flavour."


	6. Those Who Wait

A/N: I'd like to thank everybody who took the time to read this story and provide feedback (whether much-loved reviews or simply adding the story to your favorite/alert lists). This is the last chapter, and I don't plan on a sequel; I feel everything's pretty much cleared up.  
I've put in references to Tsuda Mikiyo's manga _The Day of Revolution_. I recommend it, as well as _Family Complex_ to Princess fans who had not yet read them. If something seems totally out of whack to you, it's probably canon :-).  
Cheers.

x

Part Six: Those Who Wait

x

"I missed something," Toohru said with the kind of moral certainty that came with life in Fujimori.

Mikoto was trying to escape a gaggle of first-years who surrounded him and demanded his attention like chicks around mother hen. The boy himself was spouting off on a non-related matter… in fact, on a variety of non-related matters, hardly ever stringing a coherent sentence together. Amidst all the babble from the smaller admirers, he seemed to be striving to move in some direction… though it wasn't exactly clear _which_ direction.

"Megumi-san is coming to pick up Mikoto," Yuujirou explained. "I already phoned Akira; anybody would hate to miss this."

"She would travel all this way…?" Toohru asked, briefly amazed by the lengths people in love (because there was no other explanation) would go to, before he remembered that he had gone to similar lengths _before_ he had realised he was in love.

"She has gotten her driving licence, apparently," Yuujirou elucidated. "What a luxury, to be going out with an older woman!"

Toohru kept on smiling, though on the inside he didn't feel nearly as cheerful. Like, he supposed, anyone infatuated, he wanted Yuujirou to be happy, and if that meant that Yuujirou would find an older woman, he would be there waving banners… if not exactly happy about it.

An outdated and somewhat scratched-up Toyota turned off from the main road and awkwardly, on the third attempt, managed to park in a free spot. The door burst open and a pony-tailed young… _woman_, Toohru guessed, jumped out of the driver's seat. She was wearing baggy pants and a boy's shirt, but there was the hint of a definition of a female figure underneath the non-flattering clothes.

"Megumi-san!" Mikoto yelled at the top of his voice and charged forth, freeing himself from the grabby hands of his devoted underclassmen.

"His mind's got one track," Yuujirou remarked, "and it's not the one you'd expect."

Toohru would have been kind of bitter about it, probably, but Mikoto had taken his girlfriend by the hand and was leading her over to them… most likely to finally properly introduce her. Toohru had been somewhat surprised when Mikoto hadn't simply cut ties with the other two former Princesses; he instead involved himself with the Student Council and as Akira's left hand (the right one was still Mitaka) had became virtually omnipresent within the school. With the amount of fans that remained faithful to him – according to the few graduates they had asked that was a first in the history of the Princess tradition – he was also generally successful in his endeavours… And somehow he had swayed the new first-years, too, as evidenced by his following that had congregated around the entrance to the dormitory and was watching from afar.

"Megumi-san," Mikoto said, still using the honorific (Toohru had in the beginning thought it to be kind of pathetic, but he could see that the dynamic between Mikoto and Megumi was different from what the usual high-school relationship would be), "you remember Toohru and Yuujirou, right?"

Megumi nodded, surveying both of them with suspicious eyes. Whatever she might have seen didn't put her at ease in the least.

"Hello, Megumi-san," Yuujirou said with a blithe Princess smile.

"It's Yoshimura-san to you, Shihoudani-kun," the woman replied coolly.

Toohru practically saw Mikoto sweat-drop, and tried to intervene. "Is there a problem?" he asked quietly.

The woman looked at him and paused. She leant closer, scrutinising his face, then smiled as if nothing had happened and nervously _scratched at the front of her pants_. "N-nothing, Kuono-kun. I'm sorry for being short with you, Shihoudani-kun, but-"

"Megumi-san's mum is cross with her," Mikoto said. He sounded weary, and there were lines on his forehead like Toohru had never seen before, not even when Mikoto had been screaming his head off about not wanting to wear girl's dresses.

"Mikoto!" Megumi protested, but the boy in question put a hand on her shoulder to placate her. The gesture seemed to surprise her, and Toohru guessed it was the first time this had happened. Somehow, Mikoto had grown up a lot during the past few months, and his girlfriend hadn't yet had a chance to see it.

"Toohru and Yuujirou can solve any problem, really," Mikoto said imploringly. "Honestly – if they can't give you good advice, no one can. They're goofy and sometimes ridiculous, but…"

Toohru realised he had been gaping and shut his mouth. Yuujirou was still in an apparent daze, though he did have the class to make even that look… not completely dumb. At least so Toohru thought.

"Talk to them," Mikoto said all of sudden, and _disappeared_.

Megumi, Yuujirou and Toohru remained standing in a tense silence, until they became aware of the incessant blabber of Mikoto's goslings.

"Ice cream?" Toohru asked. In his experience, ice cream helped solve pretty much everything. Targeted by an un-cute glare, he shrugged and added: "I'm paying…"

Megumi contemplated the suggestion and probably figured that she could at least get a treat out of it, if Mikoto had really left her alone. She shrugged and let Yuujirou (who went along with Toohru most likely just in case they could get some dirt on Mikoto) steer her in the direction of the park.

"I'm interested," Yuujirou speculated once the trees had hidden the dormitory from sight, "what worries Mikoto so much that he would risk leaving his lady friend alone with us."

Toohru glanced at him askance, but the boy was staring ahead.

"I can take care of myself," Megumi growled. Since she was Mikoto's big sister's friend, no one doubted her.

Toohru lifted his hands in the universal gesture of peace, to prevent any potential violence. "Yuujirou didn't mean anything untoward, Yoshimura-san. It's just that Mikoto rarely decides to trust us this much."

"Because you keep teasing him!" Megumi shot back, angry on behalf of someone who certainly didn't need it. Toohru was convinced that the next person within Fujimori High to be called "-sama" was Mikoto.

"He just makes it so easy…"Yuujirou said.

Toohru sighed. There was the brutal honesty Yuujirou used to spread mild aggravation around himself – a surefire way of making Megumi even more unwilling to talk to them.

"I won't hesitate to sock you one if you'll continue," Megumi warned. "And I punch like a boy."

Yuujirou grinned.

Toohru swiftly shouldered into the narrow space between them to separate the warring sides. "Nonetheless, Yoshimura-san, we are Mikoto's friends, and when he has problems, he knows he can count on us." As proof, there was Megumi's impromptu trip with them.

The young woman accepted that and Toohru congratulated himself on his smooth-talking skills. He shot an accusing look at Yuujirou, got back one that could possibly be interpreted as vaguely apologetic, and folded.

"My mother disapproves of Mikoto," Megumi said, and suddenly there was a torrent of words: "Four of my friends from the time when I was a boy keep following me and asking me to marry them – well, it's actually only Touba and Tachimachi now – and they'd charmed my mother years ago, so she insists I choose between them and she doesn't believe that Mikoto and I will last 'cause he's three years younger than I am and we started going out when he was thirteen."

Toohru's brain screeched to a halt. He stared at the beautiful (thought admittedly androgynous) young woman next to him and the words 'the time when I was a boy' repeated over and over in his inner gramophone.

"R-riiight…" he breathed eventually and risked a glance sideways.

Yuujirou was biting his lower lip, seemingly in deep thought, but Toohru knew he was on the verge of bursting into a cackling fit. This was better blackmail than they could have dreamed of.

"Right," Toohru reiterated. The corners of his mouth twitched, but he resolutely fought them down. "Yoshimura-san, you love Mikoto, don't you?"

Yuujirou's shoulders shook. Certainly, the question did sound absurd coming from Toohru's mouth, but it _worked_.

Megumi nodded.

"There's no doubt that Mikoto loves you," Yuujirou pointed out in an oddly high-pitched voice, garnering looks from others waiting in the line in front of the ice cream stall.

"I think Mikoto might surprise your mum," Toohru offered. "He grew up an awful lot, got all responsible working for the Student Council-"

"People are looking up to him," Yuujirou added.

As a matter of fact, even the two _official_ Princesses (who were growing nicely, professionally as well as personally, though neither of them warmed up to either Toohru or Yuujirou) seemed to have struck up two individual and highly competitive friendships with Mikoto.

"Chocolate okay with you?" Toohru asked.

Megumi, slightly disconcerted by the barrage of compliments for her beau, merely nodded again.

Toohru bought double for each of them, having learnt from Akira's example.

He got briefly sidetracked watching his friend lick it, but soon enough recalled that he was supposed to be tackling someone else's love-life right now.

"Maybe you should let Mikoto do it," he suggested. "He can handle himself. He might not be a very good actor, but he's a good guy, so your mum should come to like him really quickly."

Megumi wasn't convinced. "He's just so young-"

"You can't keep protecting him forever," Yuujirou pointed out with spot-on insight.

Toohru caught on immediately: "He wants to protect you, too. In this case, you should let him."

Megumi mumbled something ambiguous and got lost in her thoughts. The boys let her walk back to the car park in silence. They spotted Mikoto, who had meanwhile loaded his luggage into Megumi's car, and it was obvious from a fair distance that the boy was _livid_ (apparently Yuujirou and Toohru weren't supposed to take the young lady elsewhere), and the unanimous decision was that Megumi would be the only one to approach him in that state.

She was still pensive as she bade them farewell, but her spirits seemed to have been lifted, and she must have warmed up to them a little, because she mustered a small smile for their sakes.

"We're really great at solving people's problems, aren't we?" Yuujirou asked as they watched Megumi's car sluggishly turn and speed away.

Toohru absently mumbled something that could have been construed as agreement, selfishly feeling a little sad, because they were great at solving everyone's problems _except their own_.

"Pity Akira missed this!" Yuujirou snickered. "Just think, they're actually _a pair of bishounens looking like a pair of bishoujos_!"

x

Summer break, incidentally, meant that Toohru had weeks to work and save up money for the next term. He got a bartending job that kept him busy long into the night, but it was incomparably less demanding than the work he had done during spring break. For example, he had the energy to go to town once in a while and enjoy the weather.

Damn late working hours, though; he had been unable to drag himself out of his bed earlier, so he was left to try and navigate the centre by himself and meet Yuujirou in a designated fast-food.

"Going out, Toohru-chan… eh…_kun_?" Kazuki asked. He used to be Toohru's fan and still had a little trouble with the honorifics, but otherwise he was harmless, so Toohru didn't bother to bring it up.

"Yes," he said, pausing to check out. "Was there something you needed from me?"

Kazuki shook his head. "Just, if you see Shihoudani-kun, tell him he had a phone-call, would you?"

"Who was it?" Toohru asked with trepidation and crossed his fingers. Not Sayaka…

"His mum, I think…" Kazuki shrugged and let Toohru go. It was a good thing, too, because Toohru _just_ managed to catch the bus, and that was because he had run all the way. He relaxed in the seat in the very back and hoped that he would find the place where they were supposed to meet.

x

Toohru double-checked the name of the fast-food, but it was correct. Yuujirou was late, and thus he had unknowingly left Toohru to the 'mercy' of a group of girls that spread around him after he had, foolishly, said that he didn't mind sharing his table.

When the doorbell sounded, Toohru reflexively looked up for the umpteenth time and, finally, there was Yuujirou talking to the waitress. Toohru waved – unnecessarily, of course, since his hair colour was a bit like a signal light.

"You're popular," Yuujirou grumbled, standing by Toohru's shoulder and surveying his company.

"Wasn't enough free space, so I agreed to share," Toohru explained indifferently.

"I'm sure." Yuujirou got kind of narrow-eyed and rigid, as if he was really hacked off. "Can we-"

"Oh my god!" one of the females squeaked.

Toohru and Yuujirou, both worried about what they might see, turned. The girl was staring at Yuujirou like she had just seen god.

"You're Ed!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, he totally is!" her neighbour agreed and leaned forward to display her cleavage.

Their friend was tossing her hair, trying to attract attention.

"No," Yuujirou snapped, "I damn well am not-"

"You look _totally_ like Edward Elric!" the girls insisted.

Yuujirou's patience was rapidly running out. His hands were clenched into fists, and it already looked like he was going to start a fight – _with girls_ – so Toohru took hold of his arm and pulled him down onto the bench.

They were once again in that uncomfortably comfortable proximity, and past the extent of physical contact Toohru was _just_ able to notice that with his hair in an economical braid and dressed in monochromatic black, Yuujirou actually did look like he had stepped out of a manga.

"You'd just need the watch," the first girl obstinately insisted. "They sell them in the shop by the station – I can show you where, if you'd like-"

"I don't have a clue what you're prattling on about," Yuujirou shot her down coldly, "and I don't want one."

Toohru had spent enough time in the giggly company to know that such a statement wouldn't discourage them in the least. Yuujirou must have noticed, too – especially after another wave of protest rose.

Toohru felt the palm touching the back of his neck, but he was too busy being annoyed on his friend's behalf (where did these idiots get off pushing their fantasies on a complete stranger?!) to pay it mind-

And that was why he'd been _thunderstruck_ when Yuujirou leant over and pressed his mouth against Toohru's.

Time might as well have stopped, because Toohru certainly wasn't aware of it anymore. He thought he might have been drowning. It wasn't like the glossed-lips-touching-glossed-lips kiss between the acting Princesses to dissuade an obsessive girl from further pursuing one of the protagonists. Without the make-up, Yuujirou's mouth was soft and warm and fit against Toohru's slightly parted lips. There was no unnatural slickness, and they found purchase and deepened the kiss – Toohru wasn't sure which one of them was responsible for that, but Yuujirou didn't protest, so he decided to take shameless advantage of the situation and enjoy it for as long as it lasted.

They parted, out of breath and with a brief taste of each other – Toohru was certain those few past seconds had been the best he had ever felt in his life.

He tried to back away so that he could communicate with his friend – if nothing else at least see his eyes and estimate whether he should prepare for a catastrophe or if a bit of awkwardness would solve it – but Yuujirou wouldn't let go of him and leaned in again, into a shorter and more confident kiss.

The squealing got so loud that ignoring it became impossible.

"Let's get out of here," Yuujirou muttered, giving the swooning girls a death glare. "I'm not _that_ hungry."

Toohru, who was currently feeling like someone had thumped him over the head with a _huge_ club, wordlessly let himself be pulled out of his seat and dragged out of the establishment, before power of speech and coherent thought was returned to him and he became cognizant of the grip Yuujirou maintained on his arm.

It was a habit.

"I'll treat you to an ice cream, if you'd like?" Toohru suggested, mind still reeling. Who knew someone could be literally struck dumb? And by a kiss, no less? Damn, though, it had felt much better than he had dared imagine-

"I want coffee," Yuujirou said authoritatively.

They found a coffee shop, sat down and _got coffee_. Yuujirou was sitting on the same side of the table as Toohru, whether by design or by coincidence, and devoted his entire attention to his cup.

Mixed signals, again.

Think, Toohru chastised himself. You know him, don't you? Right. Yuujirou kissed him, and then kissed him a second time, which meant it was intentional and _not_ free for interpretation. Explanation wasn't forthcoming, however… Yuujirou was shy – he had been embarrassed when Toohru had pressured him into admitting he didn't want Toohru to leave… he had pretended to be drunk just to tell Toohru that he might have a chance… Then again, it Yuujirou could have kissed him to shut up the girls – it hadn't worked, but the reasoning was plausible…?

Added together, and finished with a gratuitous dollop of hope, Toohru believed it to mean that Yuujirou wanted him to take initiative, but he was far from certain and the last thing he wanted to do was overstep his boundaries.

"You know I'm never going to grow a big chest, right?" he asked, aiming for light humour.

He received a withering glower in response. "That's kind of obvious, Toohru."

Toohru waited for the responding 'you know I only said it to way-too-obviously emphasise my unquestionable heterosexuality', but it wasn't coming. It would have been too straightforward, too _simple_. Yuujirou liked simple things, but he didn't like being simple, because that meant that people could figure him out. All Toohru had were assumptions.

"I guess…" Yuujirou muttered glumly, "I can believe you won't mess with my head. It's not that easy to trust anybody."

Toohru nodded, and poured the contents of the bag of sugar straight into his mouth, by-passing the coffee entirely. "That's kind of not enough, though," he pointed out.

"Stupid!" Yuujirou snapped. "I'm saddling you with the bill for that."

x

They stayed for as long as it took Yuujirou to drain his coffee and then headed back to the dorms, dragged down by the awkwardness Toohru had predicted as the better option. It wasn't quite clear to him _why_ Yuujirou would have done something like that – usually he would have exploited the attention the girls gave him and tried to pick up one of them (and they _did_ have ample to choose from in the chest department).

The reason that offered itself was that the kiss, after all, was not for the girls but for Toohru: that meant that they had had another case of miscommunication. Toohru wondered if they wouldn't have less of these if they relied solely on their ability to predict one another.

They climbed the stairs up to the second floor. It was getting too dark too early, and Toohru took a detour by the terrace to gather both their clothes before the rain started. He was just in time, too; the first drops hit the windowpane as he entered the bedroom.

Yuujirou took his laundry from Toohru's arms with a nod of thanks and went off to fold it and put it into the wardrobe. Toohru carelessly threw his own pile onto his bed, flopped down next to it, closed his eyes and moped.

"You didn't have to pay," Yuujirou said when the silence got heavier than a ball and chain attached to Toohru's ankle. The wardrobe door squeaked as he shut it.

"Damn it, Yuu…" Toohru growled, content to watch the backs of his eyelids. "I can't buy you candy or – god forbid – _flowers_. I can't get you jewelry, I can't even take you out to a different place than we go normally anyway. The one thing I can do is buy you a bloody coffee, so that's what I'll bloody do."

"Don't work yourself up," Yuujirou warned, "or I'll get Akira and have him Buddha-smile you into utter tranquility."

This was when Toohru _would_ have looked over, if for nothing else then to show his displeasure with a scowl, but a warm and very solid weight settled astride his thighs, so the plan had to be scrapped. Opening his eyes, he realised Yuujirou's nose was almost touching his.

"You're a bit self-conscious," Yuujirou proclaimed, frowning in concentration.

Toohru couldn't have recalled his birth-date in that moment, held captive by the pair of penetrating gold eyes.

"I guess I didn't care to see it before," Yuujirou said and sighed heavily. "I'll have to break it down for you, then, to make sure you understand. When I kiss somebody, _Toohruko-chan_, it's because I want to."

He wanted to… he _wanted to_. That had been the condition, hadn't it? Toohru remembered: Yuujirou had told him to 'make him want it'. And now he did.

He suddenly became aware of fingers tangled in his hair, of the straining fabric of Yuujirou's trousers as he knelt up with his knees wide, of the tip of the blond braid that sneaked underneath Yuujirou's tank-top. Toohru's hands touched the bare shoulders, at first tentative but when he was well-received a tad more forceful-

-and they were kissing again. Once Toohru stopped thinking about it and relaxed, his body knew what to do on its own – an arm sneaked around Yuujirou's waist and pulled him closer, a hand cupped the back of Yuujirou's skull – while they became intimately acquainted with each other's mouth.

It was like a dream, and Toohru wanted to cling to it and never let go. Stupidly, dazed, he mumbled: "I love you…"

"I'm very well aware of that, Toohru," Yuujirou told him, too out of breath to manage the mocking snicker he had been aiming for. "Otherwise I wouldn't have even considered this."

x

If coming together hadn't been exactly easy for them, parting turned out to be ridiculously difficult. Sprawled across Toohru's bed, on his laundry that, while horribly crumpled, smelled of citrusy detergent, even the ever-pragmatic Yuujirou lacked the self-discipline to untangle himself, stand and relocate to his own bed.

Toohru, on the other hand, didn't want to let go even for a moment. He believed Yuujirou, and knew that once the boy had decided on something his stubbornness would carry him past the end of the world, but there was something fragile captured in their first embrace and he knew it would flee the instance they were separated.

"I'm getting my ass upstairs and going to sleep," Yuujirou said – amazingly clearly, considering that he had his nose buried in Toohru's throat. It was kind of uncomfortable to breath around, but Toohru was on cloud nine and thus unlikely to even notice discomfort.

"Mhm," Toohru replied, at once believing his friend – _boy_ friend – completely and doubting that either of them was going to move.

"I really am," Yuujirou reassured him, somewhat annoyed that Toohru had dismissed his statement.

"I know," Toohru replied, surprised when the sudden dashing of his hope to stay like this forever didn't come accompanied by disappointment.

It, once again, came down to the fact that Toohru liked being touched, especially being touched with affection, and 'being touched with affection by Yuujirou' was as good as life could get. Toohru was perfectly aware that Yuujirou was not an overly tactile type and the only cuddling that would occur would be behind closed doors when Yuu was particularly tired or lazy, and thus he absolutely hated that one of those occasions was coming to an end.

"I really, _really_ am," Yuujirou said, lifting himself on all four.

A second after their eyes met they were locked in a kiss again. It was like a dam had burst – after so much time spent waiting, so much denial and circling each other and skirting around issues, the freedom to touch and taste and explore made it damn near impossible to _not_ do so. As if they were subconsciously scared that this was the only chance… Hopefully they would calm down with time, because if they went to classes with this much tension between them, they might as well put up huge neon lights.

Toohru smiled, because the theory was sound, and he could use it to wrangle as much touchy-feely together time as they'd be able to fit into their holiday schedule – because while both of them were certain in their commitment, neither was ready to go public just yet.

"We're not sleeping together tonight," Yuujirou declared decisively once he had liberated all the faculties necessary for articulate speech.

"No?" Toohru pouted. "Here I thought you were used to 'sleeping with me' after last year."

Yuujirou, amazingly, blushed. He stuck his nose in the air (which meant, in the position they were currently in, that he craned his neck and gave Toohru a chance to count his nostril-hair) and haughtily replied: "Those were extenuating circumstances. Besides-"

Toohru shut him up with another kiss, since otherwise he would have broken into a fit of giggles and possibly pissed Yuujirou off.

"_Besides_," Yuujirou repeated, disentangling himself and sitting up, "back then I could be sure that my chastity was safe around you."

He was too damn tempting, ruffled, pink-cheeked, eyes a little glassy, lips a bit bruised and clothes dishevelled past salvation… Toohru would have grabbed onto him and held him captive, but Yuujirou was too quick.

"Uh-uh, Toohruko-chan," the blond mocked, springing off the bed to dodge Toohru's hands. Once he had put a safe distance between them, he put one hand on his hip and raised a finger to exaggeratedly emphasise his point. "Be patient. People say that good things come to those who wait."

Yuujirou turned off the desk-lamp and deftly climbed the ladder up to his bed in the fallen darkness. It occurred to Toohru that he hadn't bothered to change into his pyjamas, but Toohru understood – after all, he also merely lay back down and closed his eyes, clutching the pillow to him in the absence of the live body to cuddle up to. Yuujirou's warmth and smell still lingered all over.

"Oi, Toohru…" a mock-annoyed voice drifted from upstairs. "If you dream of me again, do try to keep the noise down, would you?"

x

"Why am I here again?" Toohru muttered, staring at the door in front of himself and feeling doom creeping up on him.

Yuujirou shrugged. "Mum insisted."

Toohru sighed. He had seen enough of Mrs Shihoudani's perceptiveness (which Yuujirou inherited) to suspect all sorts of reasons the woman might have had to 'insist'. "I'm going to be interrogated…"

"Probably," Yuujirou said, himself a little nervous. He grabbed Toohru's hand and bravely rang the bell.

"My respect for Mikoto's rising," Toohru remarked. He had it easy; Yuujirou's whole family liked him, so unless there was a problem with him being a boy (which Mrs Shihoudani suggested there wasn't) this was going to be a piece of cake…

…he was terrified out of his mind.

"Yuu-chan! Toohru-kun!"

The door opened and Toohru was pulled into a hug – around his knees.

"Too-chan! Too-chan came!"

"Hello, Shin-chan," Toohru said, grimly aware that he had been effectively taken captive for the oncoming investigation. "Hello, Mr and Mrs Shihoudani."

"Let me take your luggage, boys!" Mr Shihoudani exclaimed assertively, grabbed both their backpacks and disappeared into the relative safety of the depths of the house, as scared of the glint in his wife's eyes as Toohru was.

"So?" Mrs Shihoudani urged. "How did it go? Did it work?"

Bemused, Toohru sought some kind of elucidation from his boyfriend, but Yuujirou was blushing and facing the ground.

Then Yuu shook his head and Mrs Shihoudani let out a sound only describable as 'kyaaa'. "It didn't?!"

Yuujirou scowled. "It's not my fault he overanalyses everything and has no self-confidence!"

The woman scowled, too (the relation between them was unmistakable) – at Toohru. "Toohru-kun, when someone kisses you, it means they like you."

Toohru blushed and rounded on his boyfriend. "You asked _your mum_ for advice on how to get together with me?!"

"So you are…?" Mrs Shihoudani demanded, robbing Toohru off a chance to – deservedly – grill Yuujirou a bit longer. "_Are_ you going out?"

Shinnousuke craned his neck and spoke up from around Toohru's knees: "Too-chan will marry big sister?"

"Let go, Shin-chan," his mother said with exasperation. "Toohru-kun, come in and make yourself at home… _but first answer my question_."

Toohru was curious. If he told her Yuu and himself were just friends, would he be sent straight back to the dorms?

"Well, Toohruko-chan?" Yuujirou, who had in the meantime recuperated, was back at his teasing best. "Tell us how I feel about you?"

Toohru didn't quite think it through, or he would have realised he was being too harsh before he said: "I don't know. You haven't actually told me."

The joking atmosphere – at least what seemed to have been a joking atmosphere – instantly evaporated. Mrs Shihoudani's expression fell; Shinnousuke caught on to the change of mood and scrunched up his face as if he was going to start crying any second.

Yuujirou, stone-faced, pulled onto the hand he still had in his grip (Toohru had actually _forgotten_ it was there – and wasn't that enough of a hint for everyone who saw them?) and leant in to Toohru's ear to whisper. "What are you thinking? That I'm with you for laughs? Out of pity? Because I'm curious?"

Toohru would have shaken his head, but Yuu had a fast grip on him. He suspected it was because the boy was embarrassed and hiding in Toohru's hair, most likely blushing as he was wont to whenever pressured to be straightforward about his emotions.

"I know it's not like that…"

"I love you, stupid," Yuujirou whispered.

Toohru had known that – or at the very least had been convinced of that – before, and he felt like a total idiot because they were standing on the threshold, in front of Yuujirou's mother, and his eyes were welling with tears.

Then Yuujirou pulled on Toohru's hair and stepped away, scowling again. "There. Cleared that up," he grumbled and pushed Toohru inside the house, past his beaming mother and clapping little brother.

Toohru found himself smiling again as he toed off his shoes. What a rollercoaster! Still, he had known it was going to be a fight, because they were both very dominant personalities – himself perhaps more subtly than Yuujirou – and he wanted to battle it out, down to the last proverbial bullet.


End file.
